
COL. S S. SCOTT-1880. 



THE MOBILIANS 



OR 



TALKS ABOUT THE SOUTH 



Sr Sr'SCOTT, 

Author of Southbooke, etc. 



My native country, thou which so brave spirits hast bred, 
If there be virtues yet remaining in the earth, 
Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth. 
Accept it as thine own, whil'st now I sing of thee. 
Of all thy later brood the unworthiest though I be. 

— Polyolbion. 



Montgomery, Alabama. 

the brown printing co 

1898. 



■St 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1898, by 

S. S. SCOTT, 

In the oflace of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 









TO 

Ex-Governor WILLIAM C. GATES, 

and 

General JOHN W. A. SANFORD 

of Alabama, 

Who have battled ably and bravely for the South 
in field and forum. 



PREFACE. 



Many of the leading men of Mobile have been ac- 
customed, during the heated term, frequently to seek 
rest, recreation and health, by excursions down the 
bay, and to the outlying gulf coasts in the vicinity. 
A party of this kind, has been organized on paper into 
a literary club, under the name of " The Mobilians," 
by the writer, as a convenient, and, it is hoped, inter- 
esting, means of presenting to the reader certain 
sketches and stories illustrative of Southern life and 
character. It may be well to say here that fiction has 
been carried but little further in the matter. The men 
and women of the following pages are real men and 
women. All the stories are founded in fact, and 
more, — they are true in their main incidents. There 
is not one of them, in which occur more departures 
from exact fact than "Tuskaluza ;" and yet even in that 
case history has been rather closely followed. With 
the exception of the little love episode, and the ac- 
count of the death of the great chief, the narrative 
hereinafter given, is indeed history, and nothing more. 
The chronicles of the time contain a meager but in- 
teresting account of his meeting with De Soto; of the 
battles of Movile; and of the final destruction of that 
city — the capital and stronghold of his tribe; but they 
are silent as to his fate. He was either destroyed; or, 
he ran away, and left his people to the destructive 
mercies of the Spaniards. The little of his character, 
however, that can be gleaned from these writings, 
joined to a knowledge of Indian character generally, 



6 PREFACE. 

forbids the adoption of the latter hypothesis. He was 
no doubt burned with the hundreds of his braves, who 
were known to have thus perished in the houses. His 
end, — after the manner of Indian warriors, who loved 
to show their hardihood and contempt of death, to their 
enemies, — has, in the story, simply been transferred 
from the floor to the roof of his habitation — in other 
words, has been brought about in an open and speak- 
ing, instead of a concealed and silent, burning. 

s, s. s. 

Auburn, Ala., April, 1898. 



COE'TEN'TS. 



Part I.— Down the Bay 9 

The Club 12 

Lankey's Song 15 

Raphael Semmes 18 

The Club Grounds 29 

Part II.— Nights in Camp 33 

The Waydons 37 

Deertop 43 

Tuskaluza 54 

Part III.— Nights in- Camp 72 

Southern Manhood 73 

Mammy Caesar 87 

Part IV.— Nights in Camp 108 

Johnson J. Hooper 109 

Joseph G. Baldwin 112 

Julia Pleasants 115 

T. Bibb Bradley 115 

Jere . Clemens 117 

Alexander B. Meek 121 

Part V— Day in Camp 129 

Charley Wenker's Adventure 130 

A Southern Storm 136 

Part VI.— The Return 142 

Sissaline Glenthorne 143 

Confederate Soldier's Farewell 157 

Southern Cavaliers 159 

Southern Men, Wives and Daughters 160 

Bright Mobile 163 



THE MOBILIANS. 



PART L— DOWN THE BAT. 

THE CLUB — LANKEY's SONO RAPHAEL SEMMES — THE 

CLUB aROUNDS. 

But why of death begin a tale? 

Just now we're living sound and hale, 

Then top and maintop crowd the sail, 

Heave care o'er side 
And large before enjoyment's gale, 

Let's take the tide. 

— Burns. 

TT was a bright morning in midsummer of the year 
-■- 1878, that Grey Haverwood, a tall and stalwart young 
Southerner, hailing from one of the midland counties 
of Alabama, repaired to the part of the wharf at Mobile, 
where a certain neat and trim little schooner lay. The 
sun was just up, and had dusted with gold the feathery 
tops of the pine trees on the opposite side of the bay, 
while below them the thick, clustering growth of the 
bottoms reposed in dark shadow. From the dim re- 
cesses underneath the drooping eaves of these woods, 
the small sail-boats, like white-winged waterfowl, ever 
and anon, darted out and glided hither and thither 
over the shimmering surface of the beautiful estuary, 
intent upon the business or pleasure of the day. 
Under a steady land breeze from the north, the water 
of the bay, as it was touched by the red beams of the 



10 Down the Bay. 

morning, was rippled into smiles and shone like the 
dusky face of an Indian queen rejoicing in her beauty 
and in the strength and devotion of her followers. 
The large ships in the vicinity of the schooner rested 
quietly upon the water, like grim giants after heavy 
work. They showed no signs of life, save in the occa- 
sional song of a deck-swabbing seaman. At intervals, 
however, above and below the little schooner, the blue 
smoke curling upward, and the hoarse roar of escaping 
steam, told that boats had but recently come in, or 
were preparing to leave their anchorage-ground for 
other ports. 

About this little schooner all was noisy stir and 
busy activity. The members of the Mobile club, or, 
at least many of them, in the scant trim of earnest 
workmen, were assisting the servants and boat hands 
in transferring the piles of luggage scattered around, 
to the deck and hold of the vessel. One of these, 
Frank Ernley by name, who was stooping over a box, 
called to Haverwood as he approached: 

"I say, old fellow, lend me a hand here. I can't rest 
until I see this chest of breakables in a safe place on 
the schooner. It will never do to leave it to the clumsy 
fingers of the servants. My wife will not forgive me 
if any of her well preserved crockery is destroyed. 
She has the greatest horror of broken sets." 

Haverwood gave the desired assistance ; and the in- 
dicated work was soon neatly accomplished, evidently 
much to the relief of Ernley. Said the latter, as the 
two stood near the mast of the vessel : "You are sure 
now any way of a plate, knife and fork, and may be a 
cup and saucer, during our holiday in the woods over 
yonder. And that is no little matter in my estimation. 



Down the Bay. H 

You sometimes hear men say that these things are 
luxuries in undertakings like present— that when they 
are off on a frolic they do not want them. Such men 
are about as wise, as was old Micawber, when on board 
the Australian ship, he commenced to use, and had his 
family to use, in drinking, vile tin cups, preparatory to 
roughing it in the bush. And that sort of talk is of a 
piece with the poet's silly twaddle about the supreme 
excellence of love in a cottage. Love in a cottage is a 
good thing, of course,— love any where is glorious. 
But if I were one of the parties to be affected, and had 
a choice in the matter, I should take love in a fine 
house, with all the necessary appurtenances and con- 
ditions thereto. This," continued Ernley, looking 
around and seeing an amused smile playing about the 
lips of Haverwood, "is very commonplace stuff, I 
know,— and I know it without the aid of that grin of 
ridicule, or rather ridiculous grin, with which you are 
greeting my remarks,— but it is not the less true for 
all that, my boy !" 

Now all the party are aboard, and everything is 
ready ; and the little vessel loosed from her moorings, 
with a shout from friends on shore, and a responsive 
waving of hats from friends on deck, slowly makes her 
way between the smaller craft by which she is sur- 
rounded, to open water, — when, with all sails spread, 
she dances swiftly and airily to the fine music of the 
breeze, down the bay. Gulpen, the captain, who, like 
"Green Jacket" on the Thames, loved his boat "as he 
did his wife and perhaps a thought better," gave his 
orders cheerily, which were promptly executed by his 
little crew. 



12 Down the Bay. 

members of the club. 

A few words now with regard to the leading mem- 
bers of the club, that the clever reader may know ex- 
actly with whom he is sailing. All of them had gath- 
ered in knots on the low deck of the schooner. Ernley 
and Haverwood were standing near the spot, to which 
they had betaken themselves when they came on board. 
The former having been the first of the club, to whom 
attention has been called, deserves the first full and 
formal introduction. 

Col. Frank Ernley — he received the military title 
with the position during the great war between the 
States — was tall, and slender almost to emaciation. 
He had a pale, cold, intellectual face ; dark eyes of an 
indefinable color, and a finely shaped head, adorned 
with chestnut hair, closely cut, and showing the faintest 
disposition to curl. His clothing was light in hue and 
texture, loose but well fitting, and scrupulously neat. 
There was about the whole make-up of the man that 
air of perfect cleanliness, so rarely to be met with 
even among those of the rougher sex, who really pos- 
sess and practice that delectable virtue. TVithout the 
prestige of wealth, for he had lost all by the accidents 
of war, and without that of age, for he was compara- 
tively young in years, and wholly so in his feelings and 
associations, he was one of the most noted and popular 
men, in society and at the bar, of a metropolis rich in 
noted and popular men. 

With Ernley and Haverwood stood McTarney, 
Crumlyn and Maltman. The first was a lawyer and 
the last a merchant. McTarney was of medium height. 
He had brown hair and eyes, with a bright and lively 



Down the Bat. 13 

expression of face, and a quick, nervous, but not un- 
pleasing voice. His person bad taken on a little too 
much flesh for elegance, but not enough to be called 
fat, or to interfere with its movements, which were in 
a high degree active and graceful. His dress, like that 
of Ernley, was remarkably neat, but unlike that of 
Ernley, was characterized by exactness of fit and 
studied precision of arrangement. He was in the 
prime of life, was a close student and devoted to his 
profession. As chivalrously courteous as the Black 
Prince he had a cordial smile and greeting for every 
acquaintence, and all of these had a good word for 
him. Maltman was the exact opposite of McTarney 
in appearance, dress and manner. He was tall, spare 
and angular, with a hard, bony face, small eyes and 
dull iron gray hair. His words, — and they were con- 
stant both in season and out of season, — had the 
slightest touch of a drawl. There was nothing hollow 
or unsound about him. The shell was rough but the 
kernel was good and sweet. He was, in short, a plain 
and unpretending business man — at once honest and 
reliable — capable and safe. Edgar Crumlyn, the last 
member of this little party, was a fine specimen of 
young Southern manhood. His face, without being 
strictly handsome, was strongly marked, and beamed 
with intelligence and good nature. His voice was re- 
markable for sweetness of tone and clearness of articu- 
lation. In the careless flow of ordinary conversation, 
it was not especially noticeable, but in recitation, it 
was what Tennyson calls "deep chested music." He 
was as modest as he was gifted, and could be made to 
blush as easily as a rustic maiden. He was parcel 
lawyer and much planter, and resided on his, or rather 



14 Down the Bay. 

his father's place, a short distance above Mobile, in 
the Canebrake country. It should be added that he 
was something of a poet. 

A few paces from these was standing one of the 
most splendid specimens of manhood that Alabama 
could exhibit— Judge Frederick Crofton — the literary 
man "par excellence, of the party. He was of large frame 
and commanding stature. The expression of his eyes, 
as seen through the gold-rimmed spectacles, which he 
constantly wore, was unusually mild and gentle, and 
his smile was very winning. He wore his hair long, 
and it fell in gray curls upon his massive shoulders. 
His scholarship was fine, and his reading extensive. 
He was somewhere between fifty and sixty years of 
age — the oldest man among the excursionists — but he 
was as fresh and as genial as the youngest. Sitting 
immediately in front of him vv^as Robert Briarsley, a 
physician. It could readily be seen from the way this 
gentleman of doubtful age rested upon his chair, that, • 
in standing, his person which was rather diminutive, 
was held stiffly, even rigidly, erect. His countenance 
was pale and thoughtful, with a nose long and pointed, 
which sought the upper air. The most striking fea- 
ture of his face, however, was the eye, which was very 
full, heavy lidded and darkly brilliant. Grouped 
around Judge Crofton and Briarsley, were the dashing 
Wilmer Prince — his face dusky, but finely featured, — 
the youthful Charley Wenker, with his sunny hair 
thrown carelessly back from a broad and open brow, 
under which were large blue eyes and cheeks and lips 
of almost feminine softness and beauty ; and several 
others — all of whom are worthy of especial notice, — 
but as their lives do not connect them particularly 



Down the Bay. 15 

with the coming incidents of this history, nothing 
further need be said of them here. 

The five negroes, — the sable body-guard of the ex- 
cursionists, — had stationed themselves near the prow, 
as the schooner was making its way toward the centre 
of the bay, with Lankey at the head. This boy, who 
was near six feet in height, with great breadth of chest, 
as the vessel turned and sped on its way like an arrow 
shot from a bow, in a high and clear voice, fairly 
yelled — but it was a yell of ringing music — the words 
of a negro melody — "Down the Bay," — the others join- 
ing lustily and roundly in the chorus. The whole 
song, to the group of whites who listened to it, like 
Tam O'Shanter when he set out on his nocturnal ride, 

"Was glorious, 
O'er all the ills of life victorious ;" 

for while it was rolling far and wide over the water — 
now rising — now falling, — now shrilly piping — now 
broadly swelling, — a various — a many sounding mel- 
ody, — one could hear nothing else — could absolutely 
think of nothing else — 

'* Down the Bay. 

'* Farewell you cullud ladies ! 

We luv' you ev^ry one ; 
We sure you look like di'mun's, 

Black shiniii' in de sun. 
Farewell, our charmin' Dinah ! 

You's wuff your weight in gold ; 
Farewell, our laughin' Nancy ! 

Your wuff cannot be told. 



16 Down the Bay. 

CHORUS. 

We's on our way — we's on our way — 
But hah-yah !— it's not fur long ; 

We's on our way— we's on our way— 
Jist listen to our song — 
Down the bay — down the bay. 

" Farewell our Kitty darlin' ! 

Farewell our darlin' Sue ! 
Farewell our little Vi'let ! 

Farewell to all uv you ! 
We's sorry 'nuff to leve you ; 

But 'deed we cannot stay ; 
White frren's dey want our kump'ny, 

A-sailin' down de bay. 



We's on our way — we's on our way- 
But hah-yah !— it's not fur long ; 

We's on our way— we's on our way- 
Jist listen to our song — 
Down de bay — down de bay. 

" We's goin' to do some fishin' — 
Some fishin' widout fail ; 
Wi want to ketch de sardine— 
We want to ketch de whale. 
And when de 'scurshun's over, 

Your luv' boff warm an' true, 
Mus' still come down upon us, 
As ours goes up to you. 

CHORUS. 

We's on our way— we's on our way- 
But hah-yah !— it's not fur long ; 

We's on our way— we's on our way- 
Jist listen to our song — 
Down de bay— down de bay." 



Down the Bay. 17 

"Sing it over again, Lankey," exclaimed Charley 
Wenker — sing it over again. Keep singing it all the 
evening. It is just splendid." 

■ The negroes repeated the song, and did it with an 
access of vigor and animation. The ground-swell of 
the chorus especially, rolled away grandly, and yet 
more grandly, until it finally broke upon the echoing 
beach in waves of crystal melody. 

"Where did you get that song from, Lankey ?" asked 
Charley, after he had relieved himself by a deep and 
protracted respiration. "It seems to have been fixed 
up ior the occasion." 

"I got up the po'try," with a laugh ;" "Mr. Sangen- 
boom helped me wid de music; an' Colonel Ernley 
pervided de sense." 

"Umph ! I can appreciate your and the music man's 
part of the performance ; but I can't see what Ernley 
did — I can't find the sense," responded Charley, look- 
ing around rather maliciously. 

Ernley fixed his eyes upon Charley intently and 
curiously for a minute or two, but said nothing, for a 
wonder . 

"Well, I have hushed up Ernley," said the una- 
bashed Charley ; "but unfortunately, he will not re- 
main hushed up long. Just look at him now : — there 
is something in that newspaper, which he is so ner- 
vously fingering, that he desires to read to us, I am 
sure." 

"You are right, Charley, for once," replied Ernley. 
"I do wish to read something. All of you remember 
that Admiral Semmes died at his home in Mobile 
during our last excursion — about a year ago. The 
paper in my hand is 'The Marjlander' — given me this 



18 Down the Bay. 

morning by Haverwood, — and contains a sketch of the 
life and character of the great sea-captain. While the 
article falls far short of doing justice to the merits of 
the subject, it has in the reading greatly interested me, 
and will, I doubt not, interest all of you. I do not 
know the name of the writer — perhaps Haverwood him- 
self is the man— though I ought to say that he denies 
the soft impeachment." Without further preface, 
Ernley opened the paper and read: 

"RAPHAEL SEMMES. 

"I was standing in the shade of a large live-oak 
on the Horticultural Fair Grounds at Mobile in the 
spring of 1876, talking with two notable Alabamians, 
when I saw a gentleman approaching, whose appear- 
ance at once attracted my attention. Two children 
were running, dancing and jumping along at his side, 
and he now and then paused to point out to them ob- 
jects of interest around with his cane, which he flour- 
ished in the operation very much as one accustomed 
to the weapon, would flourish a sword. Small and 
compact in person, he held himself perfectly erect, and 
moved with ease and activity, although apparently 
carrying the weight of almost three score and ten 
years. His face was smoothly shaven, except where 
his lips were shaded by a light moustache and im- 
perial ; his hair was white and closely cut ; and his 
eyes under strongly marked brows were sparkling with 
pleasantry, as he replied to the laughing questions of 
his youthful companions. There was something about 
the whole man, — his bearing and manner, the firm- 
ness of his step, the poise of his head, the expression 
of his face, — which made it evident to me, that he de- 



Down the Bay. 19 

served the respectful consideration accorded him by 
the little groups of people in his pathway, all of 
whom moved aside for him to pass, with hats raised 
on ithe part of the men, and kindly nods and smiles on 
the part of the women. 'Who is he ?' inquired of one 
of my companions, as the stranger moved on and was 
lost in the crowd. 'Eaphael Semmes,' was the reply. 
That was the first and only time I ever saw this re- 
markable man — the distinguished ex-admiral of the 
Confederate States' navy, and ex-brigadier-general of 
the confederate States' army, for before the close of 
the great war he held both positions at the same time. 
"While I observed that Admiral Semmes was dressed 
with scrupulous care and neatness, I have no distinct 
recollection of the character of any part of his costume 
except his hat. It was of beaver or silk, and unusually 
high in the crown, with a brim, not broad, but wider 
than was customary in the make-up of such hats. My 
attention was particularly directed to it, because it 
seemed to form too large a part of the covering of the 
man, and evidently had a tendency to dwarf still more 
the sufficiently dwarfish person of the wearer. But be 
this as it may — that hat, it should be said right here, 
had underneath it no dwarfish mind and spirit — on the 
contrary, it had below it a mind with a breadth of 
reach, and a vigor of movement, rarely to be met with 
in big men or little, and a spirit fearless and unresting — 
ever on. the outlook for chivalrous adventure, and pur- 
suing it when discovered, with a boldness and activity, 
proportioned to the number and magnitude of inter- 
vening difficulties and dangers. And that hat, it should 
furthermore be said, covered, along with these high 
and heroic traits, others more modest, but not less 



20 Down the Bay. 

sterling, wliicli served to round up a character emi- 
nently fitting its possessor for the post of a great naval 
commander, or, indeed for any high governing position 
among men — honesty, truthfulness, temperance "and 
kindness of heart. 

"The unresting mental activity and tireless energy, 
which I have suggested as being bis dominant charac- 
teristics, left Eaphael Semmes no time nor inclination 
for play. He perhaps never took a real holiday in his 
life — one allowing full and complete rest of body and 
mind. He was appointed a midshipman in the navy 
by President John Quincy Adams in 1826, when he 
was seventeen 3^ear3 of age, and he began at once to 
prepare himself for the weighty duties of his new call- 
ing. His first instruction in naval tactics, etc., was had 
at Norfolk, Ya.; and upon examination he passed first 
in mathematics, and second in seamanship, in a class of 
forty. In 1832 he went on his opening cruise, and, re- 
turning in 1834, was granted a furlough. Instead of 
passing the time of his furlough amid the gayeties of 
the city, as was the custom of most of the young naval 
officers when freed for a season from duty, he sat him- 
self down to the study of the law, not as an amateur, 
but as one determined to master all of its dry and in- 
tricate details for the practical purposes of life . With 
patient and unwearied assiduity he continued at his 
self-imposed task until he was admitted to the bar. 
No man could give a stronger proof of unflagging men- 
tal activity and energy than was here manifested by 
Semmes, in devoting his first holiday, after long con- 
finement on shipboard, to the study of a profession, 
which he never expected to practice, and one too re- 
quiring for the thorough equipment that he secured* 



Down the Bay. 21 

such a vast amount of uninteresting reading and drill- 
ing. He was a lieutenant in the fleet that co-operated 
with the American land forces in the attack on Vera 
Cruz in 1847. After the reduction of that city, and the 
march of General Scott into the interior, he left the 
fleet, by which no further fighting could be done, and 
took service with the army ; and in order that he might 
have a full share of the fighting in the advance on the 
city of Mexico, he attached himself to the division of 
General Worth, one of the most enterprising officers in 
the American army, and continued with it until the 
war was over. Subsequently, amid his other duties, 
time was afforded him — or, rather he took the time, 
which really belonged to rest, and devoted it to writing 
out a history of the struggle — forcibly and justly set- 
ting forth, in two volumes — 'Afloat and Ashore during 
the Mexican War,' and 'The Campaign of General 
Scott in the Valley of Mexico' — the operations both by 
sea and land of the United States forces, with which 
he had served. After a few years came the great 'war 
between the States,' with Semmes upon the ocean, in 
fighting trim again ; and such active and vigorous 
cruising as was done by him during that war, has never 
been paralleled in the annals of the world. His ship 
indeed had the appearing and disappearing power of a 
veritable sprite of the deep — not here to-day and there 
tomorrov/, was to be said of it, but here to-day and 
where tomorrow? Evading with ease the multitude 
of warships sent out by his enemies to effect his cap- 
ture, on the one hand, while, on the other, striking 
their trading vessels in the most unexpected quarters, 
and destroying them and their cargoes by scores, he, 
in the short space of but little more than two years, 



22 Down the Bat. 

upon an element swarming with foes and without one 
favoring friend, swept the commerce, which he was or- 
dered to cripple, almost entirely from the ocean. When 
no further work could be done by him upon the seas, 
he hurried across the Atlantic, and made his way, 
through a Mexican port, into the blockaded Confed- 
eracy, to strike upon his native land a final blow for 
freedom, and go down, if need be, amid its wreck, and 
that of the institutions he loved so well. Soon after 
he reached Richmond, he was placed in command of 
the fleet oa the James ; and he was left to destroy it, 
which he did effectually, when the remnant of Lee's 
army was driven by overwhelming numbers from its 
defenses at Petersburg. With the commission of a 
brigadier-general of the Confederate States' army in 
his possession, he organized his sailors into a brigade ; 
and his was the last military force of the Confederacy 
that made its way in safety from its ill-fated and gal- 
lant capital. Upon a train improvised by attaching 
together some old and shattered cars left standing on 
the railroad grounds near the city and two dilapidated 
and abandoned locomotives, with his sailor-soldiers as 
trainmen, engineers and conductors, he steamed away 
from Richmond, as the Federal army marched in, and 
carried his brigade to Danville, reaching that place a 
few minutes before the track in the vicinity was crossed 
and torn up by Sheridan's hard and pitiless riders. 

"The courage of Semmes was of a high and rare or- 
der. It was a courage, which, while at times appar- 
ently akin to recklessness, was really dominated by a 
judgment cool aad calculating — fully aware always of 
what it was about, and what was before it. ^That cour- 
age was nowhere more conspicuously displayed, than 



Down the Bay. 23 

in the act, which began his war on the United States' 
navy and commerce, and the act which ended it — the 
act which launched the Sumter upon the waters of the 
Gulf in the face of terrible odds, and the act, which 
sent the Alabama, in the face of still more terrible 
odds, to the bottom of the ocean. I will give briefly 

the history of both 

"The Sumter, ready for sea, was lying in the Missis- 
sippi, at the head of the two main passes into the 
Gulf, the mouth of each of which was closely guarded 
by war-vessels of the enemy, headed by the Brooklyn, 
at the one, and the Powhatan, at the other. On the 
morning of June 30, 1861, Semmes heard that the 
Brooklyn had gone in pursuit of a suspected vessel : he 
immediately obtained a pilot, and made a dash for the 
open sea. Before reaching the bar, however, he saw 
the Brooklyn returning. That vessel was much 
stronger in her armament than the Sumter, and had 
the advantage also in speed ; but she was about four 
miles away. Semmes took in the whole situation in a 
moment, including the direction and strength of the 
wind. There was a chance, he saw, for him to escape. 
He determined to attempt it, and if he failed, to fight. 
Without pause he crossed the bar within reach of the 
heavy guns of the Brooklyn, which was making every 
exertion by steam and sail to intercept him. Wishing 
no doubt to lessen the distance, so as to have a surer 
mark, the latter did not fir6. The distance, however, 
after the Sumter got fully out to sea was never les- 
sened. By skillful management, Semmes "eat" the 
Brooklyn "out of the wind," which was followed by 
the furling of her sails. The Sumter, of course, was 
speedily beyond all danger of capture. It was a piece 



24 Down the Bay. 

of splendid daring and splendid seamanship on the 
part of Semmes, and deserved to succeed. 

"The Alabama was at Cherbourg coaling when the 
Kearsarge arrived off the harbor. The two vessels 
were nearly equal in batteries and men — the advantage 
being with the latter, — and were apparently equal in 
their build. Semmes determined to fight. Had he 
known, however, that the Kearsarge was an iron-clad, 
which fact was very cleverly, if not very honestly, con- 
cealed, he would no doubt have managed with his 
usual seaman-like adroitness to evade an engagement 
which could hardly fail to prove disastrous to him. 
On June 19, 1864, he steamed out of the harbor in 
search of the Kearsarge ; and for more than an hour, 
after he had come up with her, he presented the un- 
protected breast of his vessel to the deadly missiles 
fired from the armored sides of the Kearsarge, upon 
which his shot and shell could make but little impres- 
sion. In fact he fought his ship as long as she could 
swim. Before any measures could be adopted on 
board the Alabama to save her officers and men she 
went down, leaving them struggling for life in the en- 
sanguined waters. The victory was with the Kear- 
sarge : the glory was with the Alabama. 

*' There is an interesting relic of this fight at the 
navy-yard of Washington, which shows that while the 
glory was with the Alabama, the victory came very 
near being there too. It is a piece of timber cut from 
a part of the stern of the Kearsarge, in which, close to 
the water line, is embedded a large unexploded shell. 
A distinguished member of Congress from Alabama 
told me a few years ago that he and several others, 
among whom was an^old Federal Commodore, were 



Down the Bat. 25 

looking at this shell, when he asked the latter what 
would have been the result had the shell exploded. 
* The Kearsarge,' replied the old sailor emphatically, 
*would have gone down like a rock, sir;-~Semmes 
would have whipped the fight.' 

"The daring quality of Semmes' seamanship arose 
as much from his perfect knowledge of his profession 
and confidence in himself, as from the total absence of 
fear in his composition. I will give an incident in 
point, which may or may not be true. If untrue, I 
will only remark, that it would have been fact had 
Semmes been at the place under the circumstances 
suggested, and had there been any good reason for the 
action imputed to him : 

"A party of United States naval officers, as the story 
goes, were standing on the beach at Pensacola, some 
time between the years 1850 and 1860, when a severe 
storm came up from the southwest. It was sufficiently 
strong to induce vessels generally to seek the open 
sea. About the time it had reached the height of its 
fury, a war-ship was seen flying with the speed of a 
falcon before the gale, and making for the narrow en- 
trance to the harbor. One of the officers said : "There 
will be a wreck sure, unless Semmes or the devil is in 
command of that ship and at the helm : — no man can 
run into this port in such a storm except Semmes.' 
The ship, according to the story, loas under the control 
of Semmes; and in a few minutes it was safely riding 
at anchor in the comparatively untroubled waters of 
the harbor. 

"Another incident illustrative of the phase of 
Semmes' character under consideration, and of a na- 
ture somewhat similar to the one just given, I beg to 
3 



26 Down the Bay. 

relate. It is well authenticated, — in fact, it comes 
from a near lady-relative of the Admiral, and is sub- 
stantially as follows : 

"Towards the close of the year 1864, H. N. Caldwell, 
who was a passenger on a small vessel running between 
Havana in Cuba and Bagdad, a small place at the 
mouth of the Rio Grande, said, that just before reach- 
ing the latter point, the schooner was caught in one of 
the gales frequent on the Gulf coast at that season of 
the year, and, under the guidance of its half-drunken 
captain, soon became unmanageable. There was much 
confusion and terror among both passengers and crew, 
when a small man, continued Mr. Caldwell, who had 
been very retiring and reticent during the entire voy- 
age, suggested to the captain, in passing, some change 
that ought to be made in the management of the ship. 
The captain, under the excitement of liquor and the 
situation, ripped out an oath, and was evidently on the 
eve of ordering the speaker to attend to his own busi- 
ness ; but in looking up and seeing two eyes fixed upon 
him, with an expression calm, determined and men- 
acing, he forebore his contemplated rudeness, and, 
having still wit enough to appreciate the soundness of 
the suggestion, gave the necessary orders for carrying 
it into effect, or allowed the stranger to do so. In a 
few minutes the ship righted, and commenced moving 
through the angry waters with comparative ease. That 
unpretending and diminutive traveller, concluded Mr. 
Caldwell, was Raphael Semmes. 

"But a faint and imperfect sketch of this remark- 
able man would be here presented, were I to fail of 
dwelling, at least briefly, upon the refinement, warmth, 
and generosity of his nature. While he was in com- 



Down the Bat. 27 

mand of the Sumter and Alabama, the exercise of these 
qualities was sometimes difficult because of the cir- 
cumstances immediately surrounding him, and was 
often rendered more difficult still by the action of the 
government and people of the United States towards 
•himself. And yet in none of these cases, when duly 
weighed, was he ever found wanting. The ports hav- 
ing been closed to his prizes, he was, of course, forced 
to adopt the rule of destroying them; but this stern 
and imperative duty was always performed in such 
way as to entail no unnecessary hardship upon the 
crews and passengers of the captured ships. Indeed, 
if there were no means of taking care of these unfor- 
tunate people, without material discomfort, on his own 
ship, or, no eligible place at which they could be put 
ashore, he bonded the captured vessel and suffered it 
to proceed on its voyage. He did this with many 
prizes— some of them very valuable,— he did it with 
the Ariel, one of the large steamers of the Yanderbilt 
line, which he was anxious to destroy. The captain 
of the Ariel 'pledged name and fame,' that Yanderbilt 
would satisfy the bond and redeem the ship ; but 
Semmes knew the old man too well to suppose for an 
instant he would do anything of the sort : in fact, he 
knew when he bonded any ship, in order to save crew 
and passengers from trouble, he was simply giving up, 
without ransom, ' the lawful captive of his bow and 
spear.' In the case of the Ariel, and many other cases 
of ships bonded by Semmes, there were ladies aboard, 
and he could not bear the idea of having them sub- 
jected to all the disagreeable incidents of an over- 
crowded ship of war. In dealing with ladies, during 
his whole Confederate career upon the ocean, his con- 



28 Down the Bay. 

duct was marked by a chivalrous courtesy and tender- 
ness that speedily relieved them of all fear of mis- 
treatment. They expected a Bluebeard : they found a 
Bayard. Nevertheless Semmes' bold and open war 
upon the commerce of the United States, in the in- 
terest, and under the orders of his government, thus 
marked with a clemency not altogether usual in time 
of war even among civilized nations, was termed by 
some of the very parties, who experienced the benefit 
of his kindness, rank piracy, and he, one of the rankest 
of pirates. In pursuing, however, the line of his in- 
structions and duty, as a Confederate ofiicer, and tem- 
pering his actions by such kindness as that duty would 
allow, he could afford to laugh at such charges, and 
leave to the common sense of the world th3 vindication 
of his good name and the purity and loyalty of his 
motives. 

*'I have already spoken of his books written soon 
after the Mexican war. He wrote also ' The Cruise of 
the Sumter and Alabama,' published at New York in 
1864, and ' Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War 
between the States,' published at Baltimore in 1869. 
The preliminary chapters of this last work are devoted 
to the causes of the war. The constitutional argument 
in defense of the action of the South is equal, in the 
grouping and marshalling of its facts, and in the force 
and accuracy of its deductions, to any paper on the 
same subject, which has yet been given to the world. 
The style too of these introductory chapters is digni- 
fied and forcible ; that of the succeeding chapters, or, 
those narrating the doings of the Sumter and Alabama, 
with the account of his final public service after the 
loss of both ships, is delightfully colloquial. It ex- 



Down the Bay. 29 

actly suits the subject matter, being racy, flowing and 
brilliant. While he is the hero necessarily of all the 
adventures narrated, he is, in the highest degree, a 
modest and unpretending hero. The work is, in many 
respects, one of the most interesting of modern pro- 
ductions — indeed it is scarcely too much to say, that 
the 'Memoirs' is one of the most readable books in 
the English language. Like Caesar, Semmes knew how 
to fight, and how to tell of his fighting. 

"Eaphael Semmes was born near the city of Balti- 
more in 1809, but moved to Mobile in 18i2, where he 
died in 1877. Maryland never gave birth to a nobler 
boy, and Alabama never buried a nobler man." 

The sprightly little vessel had made rapid headway, 
while the foregoing sketch was being read and com- 
mented on. It soon neared the waters of the Gulf, 
whose heavy ground-swell could both be seen and felt 
upon the glassy surface of the bay. About noon her 
prow was turned to the southeast, and, leaving the 
western coast, a waving line, like a blue thread of smoke 
in the far distance, as she bore more and more to the 
east, she finally doubled two wooded points in close 
proximity, and darting across a broad arm of the roll- 
ing waters, to another point also embowered in trees, 
she rounded it, and swinging gracefully into the deep 
mouth of Bienville Inlet, she was at her place of desti- 
nation. 

GKOUNDS OF THE CLUB. 

The schooner at once discharged her passengers and 
cargo, and leaving two boats for fishing and bathing 
purposes, returned to Mobile. The members of the 



30 Down the Bay. 

party were, in the meantime, busily employed, by the 
aid of the negroes, in pitching their tents and making 
other necessary preparations for comfort in the woods. 
Nothing was wanting to the beauty and convenience of 
the place selected for their temporary habitations. It 
was some distance from the water's edge, upon the 
skirt of a level plateau forming the summit of a slight 
ridge, or, what might be termed a cape of pine woods, 
which, extending southward, overtopped with its emer- 
ald crown a wide reach of yellow sand, along whose 
farthest limit the waves broke in a low and musical 
murmur. Inland for some distance — indeed, until 
sight was lost amid the shadows cast by their inter- 
lacing boughs — rose the columnar stems, tall, smooth, 
and straight, of the same magnificent trees, spaced 
with almost the regularity of those in an ordinary fruit 
orchard, above a vast cushion of amber-colored pine 
needles, as soft and smooth as velvet. Towards the 
inlet the slope of the land was gradual and billowy, in 
the hollows and rounded crests of which were widely 
scattered clumps of oak, beech, and elm, with an 
occasional magnolia. The whole surface of this slope 
was covered with a kind of broad-leaved, vigorous 
grass, of intense greenness, upon which were content- 
edly browsing many fat cattle. In a narrow ravine, 
almost roofed in places by branches and vines, which 
opened some distance below into the inlet, and whose 
head broke the level surface of the plateau, was a fine 
spring of pure water. It was, perhaps, this spring, 
more than the rare beauty of the situation, or the 
excellent bathing and fishing facilities afforded by the 
inlet, which made this spot the favorite resort of these 
Mobile gentlemen when pic-nicishly, and, it may be 



Down the Bay. 31 

added, pickwickishly, inclined. Much labor had been 
bestowed upon it; but, as the work had been done, 
under their immediate supervision, and frequently with 
their direct manual assistance, by the negroes who 
accompanied them on their annual excursions, it had 
been well and artistically done, and at but little 
expense. By digging down the head of the ravine, 
and deepening the channel below, the opening of the 
spring was found just above a dark slate-colored rock, 
which jutted out from the wall about three feet from 
the floor. Over this the water ran in a thin stream, 
falling into a basin of white marble — a present from 
Ernley — overflowed its rim and passed rapidly down 
the steep descent of the ravine towards the inlet. 

So much for the club-grounds. And now the reader 
will take, for the day, a last look at the party who 
have just occupied them. The sun is about to go 
down ; and at last the tents are not only spread, but 
every thing is in its place. Lankey assisted, by the 
other negro boys, is preparing supper. The smoke of 
their fires can be seen just beyond a silver-skinned 
beech, which spreads its green branches above an 
interesting group of well-filled and well-satisfied cattle. 
The white men are scattered ; some are lying upon the 
grass, listlessly gazing into the mellowing sky ; some 
sitting together upon the twisted roots of a giant tree, 
engaged in an animated talk led by old Maltman ; and 
others wandering in pairs through the deepening 
shadows of the great pine forest. And the sun is 
about to leave them! Before doing so, however, he, 
for a moment or two, peeps through the embroidered 
hangings of his couch of feathery cloud, edged with a 
brightness, and marked with a depth and richness of 



32 Down the Bay. 

coloring such as were never displayed by the royal 
robes of Solomon. His last parting beam sweetly 
touches the grass upon the open slope, then plays 
softly with the leaves and branches of the under- 
growth; anon lovingly rests upon the lofty crests of 
the giant trees ; ana, finally, when all else is in gray 
shadow, hangs a glory about a solitary cloud sailing 
far overhead, which seems a ship freighted with purity 
on its upward way to celestial shores. 



PAET II.— NIGHTS IN CAMP. 

WAYDONS — DEERTOP — TUSKALUZA. 

Star to star vibrates light ; may soul to soul 

Strike through a finer element of her own? 

So from afar, touch as at once? or why 

Tnat night, that moment, when she named his name, 

Did the keen shreik, " Yes, love, yes, Edith, yes," 

Shrill till the comrade of his chambers woke? 

— Tennyson. 

As monumental bronze unchanged his look ; 
A soul that pity touched, but never shook ; 
Trained from his tree-rocked cradle to his bier 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook ; 
Impassive, — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the woods— a man without a tear. 

— Campbell. 

THE days had been beautiful ; and the time had 
passed pleasantly enough to the party at the inlet. 
Boating, bathing, fishing and hunting, had been par- 
ticipated in by all most heartily. Books, of which a 
limited supply, well selected, had been brought along 
by Judge Crofton, Ernley and McTarney, and had con- 
tributed much too to the general enjoyment. Fish by 
the hundred had been taken, of fine size and flavor ; 
they formed indeed the principal dish at every meal. 
The holiday, however, was drawing to a close. It was 
Tuesday night, and the schooner was expected Thurs- 
day evening- -sometime between dark and midnight — 
to take the party back to their homes. Supper was be- 
ing served in the dining tent, which was simply a huge 



34 Nights in Camp. 

fly stretched across the ridge pole, without walls. 
Torches were blazing around, lighting up the table, 
and those seated at it, with all the brilliancy of day. 
On the one side were the grim shadows of the deep 
woods, heightened by the light, which struggled flick- 
eringly under the overarching branches, — on the other 
was the open sky "studded with stars unutterably 
bright," and the rolling waters of the gulf beating soft 
music upon the pebbled beach. 

"Are there any settlements near this place?" sud- 
denly asked Briarsley, in a pause of the conversation. 

"Yes," replied Maltman, "one. It is the home of a 
widow, Mrs. Merton, and her son — a youth about six- 
teen years of age. Her husband died last year. There 
is a road through the pine woods above here, the 
nearest point of which is scarcely a mile off. Her 
house stands there in the midst of a small clearing. 
With that exception there is not a spot of cultivated 
ground within ten miles of us. The cattle you have 
seen feeding around here belong to her. She supplies 
us with that rich milk and butter, which you, indeed 
all of us, have so much enjoyed." 

"The milk and butter are well enough," said Charley, 
who was sitting, with rather a doleful expression on 
his usually bright face, nibbling at a buscuit, and sip- 
ping his wine ; "but I am awfully tired of the rest of 
our food. Baked fish — boiled fish — stewed fish — fried 
fish! I have been reading Beckford to-day, and " 

"Have you?" interjected Ernley. "Pray don't do it 
any more, please, if it makes you sullen. I see you 
look like Vathek when he had lost his sweetheart." 

"I have been reading Beckford," continued Charley, 
ignoring Ernley, "and I find " 



Nights in Camp. 35 

"You have told us that before. Why don't you say 
something new?" quietly observed Ernley. 

"Pish !" exclaimed (Charley ; "don't interrupt. I've 
been reading Beckford " 

"Is there anything wonderful in that?" asked Ernley. 
"Don't say it any more — 'please." 

"I've been reading Beckford," said Charley, making 
his words dash out, as if they were running a race 
with each other ; "and I find a passage that just suits 
me. He is speaking of the Dutch. Can't you all see 
in me what he says he saw in them, 'a flabbiness of 
complexion and an oysterishness of eye,' produced by 
the character of my food for the last few days? If I 
don't change my diet soon, I fear I will have to don 
their kind of 'galligaskins,' in order 'to tuck up a 
flouncing tail, and thus cloak the deformity of a dol- 
phin like termination.' " 

"I supposed the tail was there, Charley ; but from 
what was visible, I judged it was that of a monkey in- 
stead of a fish," said Ernley. Charley vouchsafed no 
reply to this insinuation, but turned in huge disdain to 
his buscuit and wine. 

"At our meeting here last year," remarked Wilmer 
Prince, after a pause, "our suppers were frequently 
enlivened by a song or two, as well as recitations. 
Can't we have some singing to-night? I want to hear 
Crumlyn's new song — 'Bright Mobile'." 

"Oh, no !" hastily said Crumlyn. "Let us put that 
off until we are on our way home. Just before we 
reach the city will be the best time. The song will be 
more enjoyed then." 

"Hold on, Crumlyn!" exclaimed Charley quickly — 
"certainly, Wilmer, certainly — singing by all means ! 



36 Nights in Camp. 

We'll have a song from Ernley." He knew that Ern- 
ley could sing about as well as a baboon could play on 
the flute. "Silence ! " continued Charley, rapping on 
the table with his knife, — "silence ! a song from Colo- 
nel Ernley ! " 

"Hush up, Charley ! don't be foolish, — hush up, and 
let me speak," said Ernley. "We have been so tired 
during the two or three nights of our stay here, be- 
cause of exertions 'on sea and shore,' during the day, 
that we have not cared to take up the matters of a 
literary nature, which in all our previous meetings at 
this place, have largely occupied our attention until 
bed time. You know that Judge Crofton, Haverwood, 
Crumlyn and Briarsley all promised, before we separat- 
ed last year at the close of the excursion, to come pre- 
pared on this occasion with articles — stories, sketches, 
or something of the sort — illustrative of certain phases 
of southern life, — in fact, the Judge engaged to read 
us a historical tale of Alabama founded on fact, besides 
other (what shall I say Judge?) scraps and pickings 
from his literary labors. If I am not greatly mistaken 
I promised to regale you with a written essay on 
'Southern Civilization'; and I don't propose to let you 
miss the pleasure and profit of hearing that, you may 
be sure. Judge Crofton must read us the historical 
story to-night. Before he does so, however, I want 
McTarney to relate the marvellous adventure, if adven- 
ture it can be called, an outline of which he gave me 
to-day when we were out hunting." The propositions 
of Ernley were heartily endorsed; and McTarney open- 
ed the literary entertainment with the story of 



Nights in Camp. 37 

" the waydons. 

'^Twelve or fifteen years ago one of the most inter- 
esting and lovable families in the whole length of a 
larpe and charming valley in Middle Alabama, was the 
Waydons. Their residence was a commodious two- 
storied frame building, with an ample front veranda, 
austerely plain, and a lawn that greenly undulated in 
in its gentle slope to the river's edge, plentifully sup- 
plied with oaks and hickories of great age and vast 
size. The fine corn and cotton lands, for some distance 
around the house, or rather to its rear and on its sides, 
belonged to the family, which was wealthy, and intel- 
ligent, but not so refined as to have smoothed away 
any part of those hearty and genuine homebred man- 
ners, that, like country air and shade and bloom, are 
so refreshing to wearied denizens of cities. The old 
man and old lady— uncle Wilkie and aunt Hilda, as 
they were called by the neighbors— were another addi- 
tion of the venerable couple so tenderly and exquis- 
itely portrayed in 'John Anderson, my Jo, John.' 
Aunt Hilda especially, with her mild gray eyes, lips 
that had not lost all their youthful bloom and fullness, 
and cheeks, which, though slightly furrowed by years', 
had yet about them much of their early softness and 
roundness, was indeed like the heroine of the song, a 
love of an old woman, and what was better still, an old 
woman of love. They were blessed with two daughters 
as rosily as luscious as ripened peaches, and two sons, 
not unlike in soundness and sturdiness, the ancestral 
oaks among which they had been reared. One of 
these boys was about twenty-five years of age, while 
tha other was a year or two younger. There was an- 
other son, Edwin, the youngest of the group, who had 



38 Nights in Camp. 

been seriously injured by a fall during childhood. He 
was feeble in body and by no means strong in mind. 
This unfortunate boy was the pet of the whole family. 
To his mother, however, he was something more than 
a pet. Weak and afflicted, while the other children 
were so robust and healthful, and the child, as she 
fondly termed him, of her old age, she exhibited 
toward him an anxious tenderness of manner that 
always ended in a caress, and turned upon him a wist- 
ful, yearning look, from eyes that ever seemed ready to 
overflow with tears. Although the brothers and sisters 
were so careful in supplying his wants, and so watchful 
in guarding him from harm, she was always uneasy 
when he was out of her sight. 

" Uncle Wilkie Waydon, whose health had been re- 
markably good, was one summer prostrated by a severe 
attack of fever. For some time it was thought he 
would die ; but finally, by the aid of attentive and 
careful nursing, his naturally robust constitution threw 
off the disease — his vital powers, however, had been 
so nearly exhausted in the hard struggle that his re- 
storation to perfect health again seemed somewhat 
doubtful. His physician thought that a change of air 
and scenery would be beneficial, and recommended for 
the purpose, a little watering place about twenty miles 
away. This spring was no fashionable place of resort 
— no haunt of the pleasure seeker. It was a quiet and 
sequestered spot among the hills, far from public roads, 
and was but little known outside of the immediate 
neighborhood. Several gentlemen had built comforta- 
ble cabiDS there and improved the grounds, for the use 
of their own families during the hot months ; and while 
no summer passed without some of these being occu- 



Nights in Camp. 39 

pied, it was rarely that this was the case with all of 
them. 

" Uncle Wilkie had secured one of the cabins ; but 
he was not disposed to go to it without Aunt Hilda, 
and she was not disposed to go without Edwin. For 
the first time in his life Edwin showed a disinclination 
to gratify his mother. He said he did not want to go 
away from home. After trying for some time to change 
his mind without success, she at last decided to leave 
him behind and accompany her husband. But she did 
so with much hesitation and many anxious forebod- 
ings. 'And yet,' said she to her eldest son, 'why 
should I fear for Edwin ? He will be at home, and 
have affectionate brothers and sisters to take care of 
him. Surely no harm could befall him that would not 
do so even were I present.' 

" The carriage was packed ; the two large mules, fat 
and well groomed, were harnessed to it ; and the old 
couple, after many loving adieus, drove away from the 
homestead, followed by a wagon loaded with such fur- 
niture and supplies as they would need during their 
contemplated absence. Uncle Wilkie was hopeful and 
talkative ; Aunt Hilda was sad and silent. She strug- 
gled hard to overcome these despondent feelings, and 
before the carriage had goae many miles partially suc- 
ceeded. 'Never fear, wife,' Uncle Wilkie would now 
and then remark cheerily — 'never fear — the boys and 
girls are safe and reliable ; they are good children and 
will attend to Edwin. He'll be all right when we get 
back home.' 

" In due time they arrived at the humble and modest 
watering place ; and everthing about their cabin was 
soon made snug^and comfortable. The spot|was cool 



40 Nights in Camp. 

and pleasant ; the water was excellent ; the company, 
though limited to two or three families, was congenial; 
and Aunt Hilda, and consequently Uncle Wilkie, be- 
fore many days had passed, began really to enjoy the 
situation. The old gentleman's health, too, improved, 
or he imagined it had done so ; and she, under the in- 
fluence of this cheering belief, and her many pleasant 
surroundings, seldom, if ever, brooded over the possi- 
bility of harm visiting her unfortunate boy at home. 

" It was the seventh night of their stay at the spring, 
when Uncle Wilkie was awakened by a sort of muffled 
scream from his wife. His hand touched her cheek as 
he turned himself over in the bed, — it was as cold as 
ice. Greatly alarmed, he struck a light and attempted 
to arouse her. Her eyes were wide open, and had in 
them a strange, wild, and horrified expression. Her 
breathing was deep and full, but was now and then 
interrupted by a quick, spasmodic jerk. After loudly 
calling her by name, and violently shaking her, and 
then rubbing her hands, he was about to awaken the 
servants to send for assistance, when, with a gasp, 
color returned to her face, the lost light to her fixed 
and ghastly eyes, and she raised herself up. 

"'O Wilkie!' said she hurriedly, and bursting into 
tears, 'something dreadful has happened to Edwin. 
I have just heard him, and his cry was agonizing. 
*0 mother — mother — mother!' he said, 'why don't you 
come?' 

"Her husband did his best to allay her apprehen- 
sions. He told her it was nothing but a dream. But 
she could not be pacified in that way. 

"'It was no dream,' she answered decidedly and 
solemnly. ' It was no dream ; I heard him distinctly; 



Nights in Camp. 41 

It was his voice. He was in pain, and lie called on 
me to help him. I must go — I must go to him at 
once.' 

" The old man saw now that argument and expostu- 
lation with his wife, under the circumstances, would 
be useless — that she was terribly moved, and terribly 
in earnest ; that nothing short of his instant compli- 
ance with this desire would satisfy her. He, there- 
fore, said mildly and gently : ' Certainly, my dear. If 
you wish, we will lose no time, but go home now.' 

"It was about midnight. They at once aroused the 
servants and commenced making preparations for 
leaving. In less than two hours their carriage, in the 
brilliant light of a full moon, was rapidly bearing them 
in the direction of home. ' Faster — faster, John ! ' was 
frequently the anxious exclamation of Aunt Hilda to 
the driver. 'Faster — faster, John! I am needed at 
home — I am needed at home.' 

" Before the sun was high in the heavens the next 
morning, the carriage dashed through the grove, which 
bordered their dwelling on the west ; but, alas ! that 
house so dear to them, as their home for nearly forty 
years, and the birthplace of all their children, was 
found, as they looked out of their carriage-window, a 
heap of smouldering ashes, above which frowned four 
ghastly and blackened chimneys. 

"Aunt Hilda, with a moan of intolerable anguish, 
sank, fainting, upon the floor of the vehicle. In a few 
minutes the two older sons, with the two daughters 
and several servants, issued from cottages close by 
and came to the carriage. While Aunt Hilda, still 
unconscious, was helped to a bed and left to the gentle 
and affectionate care of the daughters, the sons told to 



42 Nights in Camp. 

the father that they were not awakened by the fire 
until the whole house was in flames ; and just as they 
rushed out and saw the roof falling in and the fire burst- 
ing from almost every window, they heard the cry of 
Edwin above the roar and from the midst of the 
flames — *0 mother — mother — mother ! Why don't you 
come?'" 

There was silence for several seconds after the con- 
clusion of McTarney's story. At last Charley, turning 
to him, asked : " Do you think it was a dream ? " 

" I am sure I do not know," answered McTarney. 
" This life is full of stupendous mysteries ; and the 
one suggested in my little story is by no means the 
least of them. It is a mystery, however, that can 
never be satisfactorily solved in this world." 

"I have no doubt," observed Ernley, "it was a 
dream. The coincidence, indeed, was certainly won- 
derful, but " 

*' I don't believe it was all a dream," cut in quickly 
the sharp tones of Briarsley, who had listened 
throughout with the greatest interest to McTarney. 
" That old woman, while asleep, or in a trance, accord- 
ing to my judgment, really heard her son's voice. Her 
love for him was so great, that her spirit went out to 
him that night, or, through the influence of her intense 
and yearning sympathy in that direction, there was 
between them at the time a sort of mysterious com- 
munication, which, like the wire of the telephone, 
actually conveyed to her the words of his last, wailing 
cry. Such coincidences occur too frequently to be 
accidental — to be explained in the usually free and 



Nights in Camp. 43 

easy way suggested by Ernley. Permit me to tell you 
a story, involving one of these remarkable coinci- 
dences, in which I was an actor myself. It is like the 
one you have just heard ; and it is unlike it, too, in 
this: McTarney's story was very sad — mine is the 
reverse, and will, consequently, leave you in a little 
better frame of mind for sleeping." And he proceeded 
to relate a story, which he called 

"DEERTOP ; OR SAVED BY FAITH. 

"No part of the South is more beautiful than East 
Tennessee. It is a region of heights and hollows — 
most picturesquely situated and most picturesquely 
fashioned. The mountains which run through it, by 
their undulating irregularity, their numberless spurs, 
their broken precipices, their castellated promontories, 
and their green rounded capes, possess charms to 
which it seems nothing could be added, nor taken 
away, without marring the harmony and exquisite 
finish of the picture presented; and they embrace in 
their rugged arms, glens, dells, coves and valleys, 
whose modest and quiet loveliness is only equalled by 
the richness of their soil, the healthfulness of their 
atmosphere, and the sparkling purity of their running 
waters. 

"Toward the close of a beautiful day in early 
Autumn of the year 1845, I was riding on horseback 
through one of the loveliest portions of that lovely 
region. It was before those mountain-fastnesses had 
echoed to the shrill scream of the locomotive, as it 
dashes over its iron track, driving before it, with all 
the power of steam, the simpler virtues, and drawing 
in its wake unnecessary wants and luxurious longings, — 



44 Nights in Camp. 

thereby changing rough plenty into refined scarcity, 
and healthy content into feverish excitement and dis- 
satisfaction. The inhabitants at that time were as 
truly wealthy and as truly happy, as any in the world; 
if the means of satisfying every reasonable wish is any 
evidence of real wealth and real happiness. The par- 
ticular spot marked by my ride was not far from the 
place, where the Nollichuckee mingles its glittering 
waters with those of the Frenchbroad. I was in search 
of the homestead of old Jack Woolford, a noted moun- 
taineer in those parts, where I expected to spend a few 
days for rest before returning to my home in Alabama, 
and was, I supposed, in less than a half mile of the 
place. The road, along which I was riding, had left 
the valley, and was gradually winding its way up the 
sides of the mountain. It was after nightfall, when, 
in my ascent, I had reached the face of a cliff, around 
the centre of which the road passed. Above the road, 
and partially overhanging it, was the summit — a huge 
rock, b(3etling, black, and grim, like the brow of Charon. 
This rock gave the name, as I afterwards learned, of 
Crowpoint to the peak, of which it was the most con- 
spicuous and striking feature. 

"Although the last beam of day had disappeared, I 
scarcely noted the fact, in the flood of light hardly less 
brilliant than that of the sun, poured through an at- 
mosphere perfectly transparent, from a full moon, 
which was soaring up in the eastern heavens. Upon 
that elevated spot I drew up my horse, to look upon a 
scene, which in picturesque beauty, I have never seen 
equalled, and which, in one of its changes, became in- 
expressibly grand. A deep valley running from west 
to east, turned abruptly after it had left the spur, up- 



Nights in Camp. 45 

on which my horse was standing, to the north, and 
winding away was lost in the blue of the distance. In 
the coves, with which it was indented, gleamed clouds 
of mist, that streaming down the valley, partially veiled 
the bold faces of the precipices, and encircled with 
narrow belts the rock ribbed bodies of the isolated 
peaks,— the whole, when stirred by the soft breeze, 
which was fitfully blowing, flashed and sparkled in the 
moonbeams, as if it were thickly sowed with the dust 
of diamonds. 

"While I paused with mind and eye wholly engross- 
ed by the beauties, to which I have alluded, a cloud 
had silently gathered, and before I knew it, had spread 
in a broad band, reaching nearly to the zenith, over a 
part of the western sky. A few heavy drops of rain 
pattered upon the rocks and leaves around me. I look- 
ed up. The shower, through which I could in places 
dimly see the heavens beyond, was falling beautifully. 
The drops were large and were so widely separated, 
that they looked like falling pearls in the intensely 
brilliant rays of the unshadowed moon. Just then- 
springing from a dark peak in the distance, and cir- 
cling over mountains, glens and precipices, with their 
drapery of silver mist, until it reached in its descent the 
bottom of the far-away valley— there appeared a rain- 
bow, with all the colors marked so distinctly, and yet 
so sweetly soft, that, with the richness of its acces- 
sories, it was infinitely fairer than any sunbow, which 
had ever blessed mortal vision. It seemed really a 
revelation to earth of some of the beauties of that home 
of the happy, that is eternal and in the heavens. 

"The shower soon passed off; and with heart elevat- 
ed by what I had seen, and full of thankfulness, I put 



46 Nights in Camp. 

spurs to my horse, and was soon before the house I 
sought. It was a low, wooden structure, with a super- 
abundance of roof that had every possible inclination 
and slope, and that, extending far over the front and 
and side walls, formed a broad and continuous porch 
all around, — the gloom of which was relieved by lights 
cheerily flashing from a multitude of small windows. 
Mr. Woolford, a giant in stature, with a mass of thick 
hair perfectly white waving about a bright, ruddy face, 
gave me a hearty welcome at the gate. The rough 
wooden arch surmounting this entrance-way, I should 
not forget to say, was crowned with two immense stag 
horns, wide-branched and weather-polished, which no 
doubt had something to do with the singular name of 
the place — 'Deertop.' 

" 'Here Faith!' said he, 'is a young man, who has 
come to spend a few weeks with us. This,' continued 
he, turning to me and presenting his wife, 'is my Faith, 
Mr. Briarsley ; and I live by Faith in more ways than 
one. She never fails to take care of anybody com- 
mitted to her charge ; so you need not fear ; you will 
be well provided for.' 

"As he looked upon her and spoke, his rugged 
features were smoothed and refined by the tender ex- 
pression they took on, and there was even a caress in 
the rough voice. I thought him when I first saw him 
a second Christopher North in his sporting jacket, — I 
now thought him not unlike that same Christopher in 
one of his purest and happiest moods — in one of his 
moments of high inspiration. Before he turned to 
leave us he could not forbear patting her round, deli 
cate and most comely cheek with his broad palm. The 



Nights in^Camp. 47 

tenderness of the act was only equalled by tlie look of 
fond affection with which it was received. 

" 'His Faith,' as he called his wife, was much younger 
than himself, — scarcely forty years of age, indeed, with 
large, lustrous gray eyes, features delicately and cleanly 
cut, showing, however, amid their softened outlines, 
marks of a fearless disposition, and much decision of 
character. It was easy to see that she was a queen in 
that household, but a gentle one, — for she not only 
loved her husband, her home, and her children, several 
of whom — lusty boys and buxom lasses — were around 
her at the time, but she was proud of them all. 

"Deertop was the supper-house for the passengers of 
a stage-coach, which ran that road twice a week ; and 
soon after my arrival, I heard the bugle in the distance, 
most discordantly blown, announcing the approach of 
that notable, but now almost obsolete vehicle. I was 
standing on the porch, when it dashed up and stopped 
at the gate with a jerk, — the horses covered with foam 
and dripping with perspiration. On the box was a big, 
burly fellow, who seemed to be half asleep ; and the 
driver, who, as I found when he lightly sprang to the 
ground, was a tall, slender young man, neatly, but 
rather too showily dressed for travelling. A chubby 
youth of some sixteen years, occupied the seat imme- 
diately behind the box, with the bugle in his hand, — 
he was evidently the one who had been making the 
music. A merchant from the city of Knoxville and his 
wife were the two inside passengers ; and as soon as 
they could alight, he exclaimed to the young man, who 
still held the reins and whip in his delicately gloved 
hands : 'Well, Aiken, we have to thank you for getting 
here so soon. But I hope never to take such a ride 



48 Nights in Camp. 

again. Why, you didn't hold in the horses even when 
the road became dangerously rough and broken ; and 
my wife has been jolted and bumped and thumped and 
frightened, in a way that she will remember to the 
latest day of her life.' The young man carelessly re- 
plied, that it was a fast ride and rough but perfectly 
safe ; and he laughed as he threw the reins to the big, 
burly fellow, who with some difficulty had just de- 
scended from his seat on the coach. 

"Old man Woolford now came out. He knew the 
merchant, and greeting him as Mr. McLester, remarked 
that the coach was about an hour ahead of time. 

" 'Yes,' answered the other. 'These two madcaps 
got hold of a bottle of apple brandy in some way at the 
last station ; made the driver, as you may see, more 
than half drunk; possessed themselves of whip, reins 
and bugle ; and lo, we are here ! Ah, mischief — mis- 
chief! — thy name is — college boys! I wonder if a 
prank of any sort could be imagined that such boys 
have not practiced. I shall tell- the President of the 
University when I get to Knoxville to keep an eye on 
these youngsters. They certainly need watching.' 

"The bell rung; and we were ushered into supper 
by Mr. Woolford ; and what a supper it was to be sure? 
T shall never forget that meal, for I had never seen 
anything like it before. It was supper, dinner and 
breakfast all in one. Such meals, however, I afterwards 
learned were by no means rare among the mountains of 
East Tennessee at that time. The table was long, with 
wooden benches in the place of chairs. Mrs. Woolford 
sat at one end, flanked on the right by a huge steaming 
coffee-pot, and on the left by two immense earthen- 
ware pitchers filled — the one with sweet, and the other 



Nights in Camp. 49 

with churned, milk. Before her was a large dish of 
fried mountain trout. At the other end, presided over 
by Mr. Woolford, was a fat and juicy haunch of 
venison. Down the centre were great pyramids of the 
richest golden butter ; while on either side, and all 
about, were light breads and corn breads ; home made 
cheese and honey ; fried chicken and fried apples ; 
baked chicken and baked apples ; stewed chicken and 
stewed apples — thickly interspersed with chicken pies 
and apple pies. 

"Soon after we had come upon the porch from the 
supper-room the bugle sounded a call for the passen- 
gers. ' Twent3"-five cents apiece' answered Mr. Wool- 
ford to Mr. McLester, who asked his bill ; and to a 
similar question of the young student, who had offi- 
ciated as bugleman for the coach, the host replied : 
*0h, I suppose fifteen cents will pay me for all so 
little a man as yourself has eaten.' Such a supper 
and such pay ! Does it not seem wonderful ? The 
motto with East Tennesseans then was to live and let 
live ; and they practiced it. 

" I passed many days at this mountain farm house. 
The hunting of the neighborhood, as well as fishing, 
was excellent, and the mountain tramps in pursuit of 
game, with mountain air and water, giving me a 
splendid appetite for the generous mountain fare, 
made a new man of me — new both in mind and body. 
All was indeed well with me ! I did what I had never 
thought of before in my early life, — I thanked God 
that I lived in so beautiful a world ! 

"The day before the one I had set for my departure, 
Mr. Woolford was called by business to a little village 
about fifteen miles away. He left early telling 



50 Nights in Camp. 

his wife he would be back about nightfall, or, at 
any rate, soon after. I was off the greater part 
of the day, rambling through the mountains with 
my gun, and visiting in my walk places whose 
beauty had especially impressed me on former occa- 
sions, and which, I thought, I might never see 
again. It was near sunset when I reached the house. 
Mr. Woolford had not returned. The day, which had 
been unusually clear and bright, closed with a sort of 
haze overspreading the heavens. This before the light 
breeze continued to thicken, so that the night set in 
dark and promised to be darker. Soon after supper, 
being much wearied, I retired to rest. I do not know 
how long I had been asleep when I was awakened by 
the sound of voices in the passage before my room. 
Hastily putting on a part of my clothing, I opened the 
door to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. There 
were sitting on a table in the passage two glass lanterns 
lighted, and Mrs. Woolford was being wrapped up by 
two of her sons in a heavy blanket. She looked ex- 
ceedingly pale, and what was equally strange, very 
nervous. 'Has anything happened?' I asked as I 
stepped into the little hall. 'No — nothing,' replied the 
elder son. 'Mother is only frightened because father 
has not come, and she has determined to go as far as 
Crowpoint in search of him.' 

" 'Wait a few minutes,' said I, 'until I can finish 
dressing, and I will go with you.' 

" In a short time we were on the road, lighted by the 
two lanterns. Crowpoint, though not visible from the 
house, owing to an abrupt bend in the mountain range, 
was scarcely a half mile away, as has been previously 
intimated. A misty rain was falling, and the night was 



Nights in Camp. 61 

intensely dark. Without the aid of the lighted lan- 
terns I don't suppose our eyes would have been of any 
use to us ; and even with such help, so heavy was the 
mist or fog, that we had to move with great care and 
caution. As we plodded slowly along, Mrs. Woolford's 
anxiety seemed greatly to increase. She told me— her 
voice broken by many gasps and sobs — that she had 
gone to bed somewhat anxious about her husband, but 
not particularly frightened, as she felt that he was able 
to take care of himself. During the night, however, 
she had been troubled by a terrible dream. She had 
seen him in the dark lualk off the road at Croiopoint. 'Oh!' 
exclaimed she, wringing her hands, 'oh ! that it may 
have meant nothing— that it may have been only a 
dream! But I fear— I fear ! My God!' continued she 
wildly, 'this suspense is awful. Perhaps at this moment 
he lies crushed upon the rocks at the foot of that ter- 
rible cliff.' 

"We reached Crowpoint. And there across the 

road, resting upon his haunches, with his head 
over the outer edge of the road, seemingly looking into 
the deep gulf below, stood Mr. Woolford's horse. 
Impulsively we all at once sprang forward ; but before 
Mrs. Woolford could cry out, or faint, a voice, jolly, but 
somewhat weak, came up from a point just below the 
road. ' All right,' it said,— 'all right, old lady !— I am 
not gone yet. Help me out of this, boys, as soon as 
you can, for I am monstrous tired.' 

"The horse did not move ; but with body rigid and 
eyes fixed, stood as he did when we first entered upon 
the scene. By the help of the lights we soon discov- 
ered the head of Mr. Woolford just below the edge of 
the road. His right hand firmly grasped the roughened 



52 Nights in Camp. 

point of a rock, while his left, maintaining its hold 
upon the stout reins of the bridle, accounted for the 
apparent interest of the horse in what was going on 
below. Fortunately, too, for Mr. Woolford, a large 
part of his weight, as he clung to the face of the cliff, 
was sustained by a narrow ledge upon which his feet 
were partially resting. 

" There were three men of us, and we were young 
and vigorous men also, and then we had the assist- 
ance of the horse that held himself as firm as a rock 
against the heavy draft made upon him through the 
bridle ; and yet it was not without much difficulty 
and exertion that we succeeded in dragging the old 
gentleman back upon the road. Giving himself a 
hearty shake, and drawing a long and deep breath, — 
before even noticiog his wife, who stood near him, 
with quivering features and outstretched arms, — he 
said, with deep emotion : 'In the mercy of God my 
life has been spared. We should give Him the praise 
and render to Him the thanks. Let us' all pray !" 
And there, — in the little circle of red light amid the 
gloom of that mountain peak — was offered up a prayer, 
which, for the eloquence of sincere feeling, I have 
never heard equalled. Its sonorous swell gave to 
every crag around a tongue of grateful acknowledg- 
ment to God. It reminded me of the thanksgiving of 
the great prophetess who dwelt under the palm tree 
between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim, upon 
her triumphant return, from having gone down with 
Barak, against the hosts of the Cannaanites under 
Sisera. 

"Then he arose from his knees, and, putting his 
brawny arms around his wife, said : 'Under the provi- 



Nights in Camp. 53 

dence of God you and these dear boys have saved my 
life. How can I ever repay you ?' 

"I do not deserve any thanks, John,' said she affec- 
tionately. ' I was working for myself, too. What 
would life be without you?' 

"But how was it that you came just when you were 
so much needed?' asked Mr. Woolford, as we picked 
our way, a happy party, back to the farm house. 'I 
hadn't quite given myself up for lost. I still had a 
little hope ; but I could not have held out much 
longer.' 

" 'Mother,' replied the older son, 'scarcely an hour 
before we reached you, dreamed that she saw you walk 
off the precipice; and in a few minutes she had brother 
and myself ready to attend her in the search. She was 
as wild as if she had really seen you take the terrible 
leap, and we could hardly move fast enough to suit her, 
although we did our best.' 

" *A dream! ' muttered Mr. Woolford musingly, 'and 
about an hour before!' After a moment's pause 
he continued: 'I judge that was about the time I 
stumbled over. I had dismounted at the foot of the 
ridge, and had worked my way slowly upward, by feel- 
ing as I could not see, until I reached the top. I sup- 
posed I was near the middle of the road. It was well 
my horse, that I was leading, had a better idea of 
where we were than I had, and braced himself so 
strongly against me as I took the dangerous step. It 
was fortunate, too, that the bridle, in my fall, did not 
slip through my fingers.' Again he paused; and then 
again he muttered musingly: 'A dream! Truly the 
ways of Providence are past finding out. A dream — 
a dream!' 



54 Nights in Camp. 

" 'Yes, a dream!' said I laughing, as we reached the 
house, and were about to separate for the night; 'and 
you may well wonder, for you are certainly a substan- 
tial body to be saved by the airy nothingness of a 
dream.' 

" 'You have not put it exactly right,' answered Mr. 
Woolford, holding his wife close to him by both hands, 
and looking her fondly in the eyes, — 'I was saved by 
Faith!" 

All at the table expressed themselves as being de- 
lighted with Briarsley's spirited narrative of his youth- 
ful adventures among the mountains of East Tennes- 
see. Silence having been obtained, Ernley said: "We 
are ready now to hear the promised historical tale of 
Alabama." 

"Well," remarked Judge Crofton, "I am ready too. 
I fear, however, the story," he continued laughingly, 
"will not be found worthy of the consideration of so 
august an assemblage, and," he now spoke seriously, 
"Iknow it is not worthy of the subject." He went to 
his trunk and took out a roll of papers. Seating him- 
self again at the table, he adjusted his spectacles, and 
seeing by a glance around that all were awake and ex- 
pectant, he read the following account of 

"tuscaluza; or knight-errantry in the wilderness of 

ALABAMA. 

"It was a lovely and romantic spot on the southern 
bank of a noble stream.* Oa every side was wide un- 
broken forest. Between the great trees, the eye in 

*The Tallapoosa. 



Nights in Camp. 55 

vision, could wander far over vast sweeping undula- 
tions of land, producing a short, thick, wiry-looking 
grass, and destitute of all other undergrowth, except 
along the banks of a little rivulet, which made its way 
by broad and easy windings into the large stream close 
by. This singular and beautiful cleanness of the forest, 
giving it in some sort the appearence, amid many 
marks of native wildness, of a smooth and well-kept 
lawn, was no doubt the result of annual fires. The day 
was bright; and the sun, which was about midway be- 
tween its meridian and its setting, made golden the 
ripples of the lordly river, which moved so silently 
and with such an expression of resistless power be- 
tween its heavily wooded banks; but none of its rays, 
finding an opening through the interlacing branches, 
reached the place, to which the reader has been invit- 
ed, and which, it should be said, was not far from the 
centre of what is now known as eastern Alabama, in the 
eaily autumn of the year 1540. Down one of the vistas, 
which gracefully swept into a little sylvan valley, 
where a short bend of the streamlet before mentioned, 
brought its sparkling waters, like a miniature lake, to 
view from the midst of embracing thickets, a herd of 
deer piloted by a splended stag, had paused to drink. 
Scarcely, however, had their mouths touched the water, 
when their leader threw up his antlered-head with a 
shrill whistle of alarm; and immediately they were 
bounding away through the gray shadows of the 
woodland with the speed of the wind. The sudden 
flight of these fleet rovers of the wilderness was not at 
all remarkable; for what they saw was something start- 
lingly new to the place. Here upon the bank of the river 
just above were they had paused to drink, and moving 



56 Nights in Camp. 

about under the trees, were two men clad in complete 
armor. Their plumed crests and the banderoles of 
their heavy lances showed hard service, as they ap- 
peared sadly faded and frayed while fluttering in the 
light breeze. 

"The two men, whose appearence harmonized so 
little with their surroundings, were a Spanish knight, 
Don Francisco de Anasco, and a Spanish man-at-arms, 
Juan Ortiz. They were followers of Hernando de Soto, 
the adventurous captain, who, led by bright visions of 
a high and enthusiastic ambition, introduced the 
chivalry and knight-errantry of the old world into 
the wildest heart of the new. Don Francisco was one 
of the most trusted lieutenants of that renowned chief- 
tain, a distant relative, and the affianced husband of 
his niece. Dona Inez de Soto, the reigning belle of Se- 
ville. His face, which could be seen under the broken 
plumes of his visorless morion, was handsome, and 
while his features Joined with his tall and robust form 
and active movements, denoted youthful vigor, they 
likewise — especially the full dark eyes, closed lips, 
strong jaw and prominent nose — indicated courage to 
meet danger, resolution to battle with it, and fortitude 
to sustain all its worst evils. Juan Ortiz, who had 
taken the helmet from his head, and was carrying it in 
his left hand, while his right grasped a stout Biscayan 
lance near the point, so that its ashen shaft trailed 
behind, as the two slowly paced back and forth, had a 
hard weather beaten face brought by sun and ex:- 
posure to almost negro-blackness, with a shaggy beard 
and a bristling suit of coarse dark brown hair. His 
square frame, heavy-set and compact, and his firm and 
elastic tread, gave evidence of vast strength and no 



Nights in Camp. 57 

ordinary powers of endurance. Connected with the 
ill-fated exposition of Narvaez into Florida, he had 
been captured by the Indians, and retained in the ser- 
vice of one of their chiefs until the march of De Soto 
from Tampa bay; when by chance he was rescued and 
attached to the army as interpreter. He was well fit- 
ted for this important position. Having remained with 
the Indians of Florida for nearly twelve years, he spoke 
their language fluently. Understanding too their 
habits and manners he was of great service to the ex- 
pidition in the settlement of the many trying, difficult 
and delicate questions, which were constantly arising 
with the natives, as the little army moved upon its 
unknown and perilous way. An invaluable acquisi- 
tion to the great undertaking of De Soto, and being a 
gallant soldier as well as a man of pleasant manners 
and conversation, he was treated by that chieftain with 
much consideration, and, at the same time, was receiv- 
ed as a companion by many of the proud young hi- 
dalgos connected with the army. 

"'What thinkest thou now, Juan?' asked Don Fran- 
cisco; 'will she come? I am tired of waiting.' 

"'I am sure of it,' was the confident reply. 'The 
one trait that is never wanting in the character of an 
Indian is gratitude. In no instance has he been known 
to forget a favor or a kindness. Besides, if I am not 
mistaken, there is a feeling stronger even than grati- 
tude urging the girl to come here to-day, — and that is 
love.' 

"'What dost thou mean?' asked the young knight, 
stopping short in his walk, and turning to his com- 
panion. 

5 



58 Nights in Camp. 

" *I mean,' answered Ortiz deliberately, 'that she has 
fallen in love with you.' 

"'Pish!' ejaculated Don Francisco with some im- 
patience. 'Let that pass — please. Thou art a close 
observer truly, if thou hast discovered that important 
secret in two hasty meetings; for I suppose thou 
hadst never seen her until I chanced to release her 
from custody at Tallassee a few days ago, and hast 
seen her but once for a few minutes since, when she 
gave thee the message that brought us here to-day.' 

*' 'No matter : I think it is as I have said neverthe- 
less. And I am glad of it rather. It is not a bad thing 
to have a safe and reliable friend at the dusky court of 
her father, Tuskaluza — the most powerful and warlike 
of all the chiefs of this wilderness. You helped the 
expedition no little, in my opinion, when you prevailed 
on the Governor not to hold her and her brother as 
hostages for the good faith of their father. Having 
come to Tallassee bearing an invitation from Tuskaluza 
for the army to visit his country, sound policy de- 
manded that they should be kindly treated. As the 
soldiers, in obeying orders, surrounded them, and one 
or two laid their hands roughly upon the girl, I could 
see that she was much alarmed, and that she watched 
you in your appeals to the Governor for their release 
with the greatest solicitude. She really seemed to un- 
derstand what you were so earnestly saying ; and after 
you had succeeded, and the order for their release was 
given, she looked as different in her beauty, as does a 
morning rose fresh and sparkling with dew, from the 
same flower after it has been heated by the rays of the 
midday sun ; and I observed that wherever you moved 
her eyes followed you with an expression of grateful 



Nights in Camp. 59 

affection. But,' continued Ortiz somewhat maliciously, 
yet hesitatingly and deferentially, — for although the 
betrothal to Don Francisco of the lovely niece of the 
Adelantado was generally known throughout the army, 
the rough soldier was not sure how the haughty Cas- 
tilian blood of the young cavalier would brook any 
allusion to it from him, — 'but what will Dona Inez say 
when she learns that you have a true love out here in 
the wilderness?' 

"De Anasco displayed neither surprise nor resent- 
ment at the remark of his companion ; on the contrary, 
when replying to it he seemed by his absent manner 
to be partly thinking of something else — perhaps of 
the many freshly budding charms of the daughter of 
Tuskaluza. He said: 'I shall give pain, I trust, to 
Dona Inez no more by my actions here than elsewhere. 
I am a gentleman, and consequently am as far from 
doing basely in this wilderness, as when I stand within 
the brilliant circle surrounding the throne of my sov- 
ereign.' 

"'Good!' said Ortiz bluntly. 'I wish some of the 
other leading officers of the expedition felt as you do. 
"We would then have less trouble with the Indians. At 
any rate I trust the Governor will not, as he unfortu- 
nately did at Chiaha, in answer to their unworthy 
solicitations, endeavor again by force to take Indian 
women away from home, kindred and country. And 
then, destroying the crops because the people betook 
themselves to the woods for protection, was a poor re- 
turn for all their kindness to us.' 

"The crackling of brush was heard not far away. 
Ortiz stopped in his walk, and looking in the direction 
of the sound, exclaimed : 'But here she comes at last 
to speak for herself.' 



60 Nights in Camp. 

" From the cluster of bushes and vines about the 
place where the little stream emptied into the river 
the Indian girl emerged, and, with a light and active 
step, approached the spot occupied by the two 
Spaniards. She paused before Don Francisco; and 
with no greeting, unless a bowed head, eyes cast to the 
ground, and hands crossed upon her bosom, might be 
considered one, she stood motionless. She was dressed 
in a robe made of the skins of martens, soft and glossy, 
reaching nearly to the tops of her richly embroidered 
moccasins, and gathered at the waist by a girdle of 
large pearls obtained from the muscles of the smaller 
streams, securely strung together. Her neck, right 
arm and shoulder, which were exquisitely moulded, 
were bare, except where they were concealed by masses 
of hair, which fell in a shower of ebon blackness about 
her graceful person. A band made of a kind of net- 
work of strung pearls holding many brightly colored 
feathers adorned her head. The rare picturesqueness 
of her attire was in perfect harmony with the spirited 
bearing and wild beauty of this dusky-featured maiden 
of the woods, and helped to make her look, in very 
truth, an Indian queen. The tones of her voice were 
soft and mellow, but the flow of her words was now 
and then broken by long and troubled pauses, as she 
replied to Don Francisco, who said, upon her ap- 
proach, that he had gladly waited upon her at the place 
appointed, and desired to know in what way he could 
serve her. The interpretation of her answer, as given 
by Ortiz, was about as follows : 

" 'I wanted to see the young warrior from beyond 
the great waters once more. I wanted to thank him 
for his kindness to the Fawn of Movile. I have always 



KiGHTS IN^CaMP. 61 

been free. As a captive I would pine away and die. 
You have saved me from that evil. I am grateful. I 
will never forget your goodness. I am ready to serve 
you. Listen ! My father is a great chief. He loves 
his people. He does not love the pale faces. He 
thinks you have come for the ruin of his country. 
War is his delight. While he will open his home to 
you, around it will be concealed his fiercest warriors. 
They will be prepared for your destruction. Go not 
with Tuskaluza. Go back the way you have come. 
But if you must go with him be cautious. Do not 
offend him. Let his people alone, and stay not long 
in his country. And be watchful. He must see that 
your eyes and ears are open. Then he may let you 
pass on without trouble. I have spoken. I hope the 
white warrior's ears are long, and he has heard all my 
words. Farewell! Farewell!' 

" She sprang impulsively forward, and seizing Don 
Francisco's hand, pressed it to her brow and bosom, 
and turning she darted like a bird away through the 
forest, and was speedily lost to view in the thicket 
from which she had issued only a few minutes before. 

"'That was quite a hurried and abrupt leave-taking, 
was it not, Juan ? I am sorry of it, too ; I desired to 
talk with her further. However, she has given us 
intelligence upon which we should act. I will carry 
it at once to De Soto.' 

"These words were uttered by De Anasco as he and 
Juan proceeded to their horses, which were tethered 
not far off, amid the drooping lower branches of a 
huge water oak. He spoke carelessly and coldly, as 
if he took no other interest in the Indian girl than 
such as might naturally be called up by the value and 



62 Nights in Camp. 

importance of her information. Having reached their 
chargers, they sprang into their saddles and rode 
rapidly away, the ringing of their armor being heard 
for sometime after they had passed out of sight. 

"The next morning De Soto broke up his camp, 
which was only a few miles from the spot just de- 
scribed, and lower down on the bank of the same 
river. He proceeded in a southwesterly direction, 
through dense forests, across black and tangled 
ravines, interspersed with vast reaches of cane — the 
secure lairs of multitudes of wild beasts — to a small 
village, upon the confines of the territory of Tuskaluza. 
This village was the place appointed for the meeting 
of these two great chieftains. 

"Tuskaluza had already arrived, and was waiting. 
As the Spaniards approached, he was seated upon a 
pile of cushions, near the crest of a slight eminence, 
in the midst of a wide circle of his most stalwart 
braves. His head was protected from the sun by the 
barred banner of his tribe, which was held above him 
by the one who bore it in battle. Fierce and powerful 
in fight, with a skin much darker than that of the 
ordinary Indian, his name (Tuskaluza, or Black War- 
rior,) was not inappropriate. A robe of the finest 
skins yielded by the animals of his country rested 
upon his shoulders, and fell in easy folds about his 
person, which, with a plumed head-dress of brilliant 
colors, and sandals of untanned leather, completed his 
graceful costume. 

"The great chief was fully equal to the circum- 
stances by which he was surrounded. Not for a 
moment did he fail in the stoical dignity of an Indian 
king. Mute and motionless, he held himself as if he 



Nights in Camp. 63 

were lord of all he surveyed. The glance of his bright 
black eye was proud and high, while the stern and hard 
repose of his swarthy face was unbroken — betraying not 
only no surprise at what was so new and remarkable, 
but not even consciousness of the brilliant array of 
cavaliers before him, until De Soto, separating himself 
from his officers, walked into the open space in front 
of the cushioned throne. Tuskaluza then arose and 
advanced a few paces. When he stood up, it was dis- 
covered by the strangers that his form, splendidly 
developed, approached the gigantic. The person of 
De Soto seemed dwarfed into insignificance by the 
side of the massive body of the princely savage. 
Taking the gauntleted hand extended to him, the 
chief, with much grace, and yet with a coldness which 
to De Anasco appeared significant, and in words of 
more than ordinary Indian brevity and directness, 
welcomed the Adelantado to the land of the Movilians. 
Said he : ' Few words are best. It is my way to say 
little. Your presents came. I value them because a 
great chief sent them. You can be my brother if you 
will. But will you? I hope so. If I can help you, 
speak! and your wishes shall be met. I have done.' 

" De Soto, with the bluntness of a soldier, but with 
all the refined policy of a thorough courtier, replied as 
follows : * The words of Tuskaluza are very pleasant. 
They are good. They have gone to my heart. To be 
considered his brother is my dearest wish. A king 
might be proud of the honor, for the fame of Tuska- 
luza is not confined to this place. I have heard of him 
wherever I have gone since I landed upon these 
beautiful shores. Known throughout this great 
country, he is loved by his friends and feared by his 



64 Nights in Camp. 

enemies. I am glad that I have been permitted to see 
him. Many moons have I traveled for the purpose ; 
and I have come only to do him and his people good. 
I wish to get gold — something that he does not want ; 
and to give him in exchange for it something that he 
needs. I have here, in further token of my regard for 
him as a high and mighty chief, such a dress as our 
kings across the great water wear when they go abroad, 
or receive their headmen in council. I hope my 
brother will accept it.' 

"An attendant brought forward the presents and 
laid them at the feet of the chief. They consisted of 
many glittering trinkets and a fine suit of scarlet, 
including mantle, cap and plume. The color was the 
favorite one of the Indian, and Tuskaluza was, no 
doubt, pleased, although he exhibited no especial 
mark of gratification. 

" But a short stay was made by De Soto at this 



village. Placing himself at the head of his army, with 
Tuskaluza by his side, clad in the gorgeous dress 
referred to, and mounted upon the largest packhorse 
of the expedition, whose powers, however, the weight 
of the huge Indian taxed to the utmost, the Adelantado 
moved in the direction of Movile. The country 
through which he passed, though in many localities 
wild and savage in the extreme, became richer and 
fairer as he advanced; the settlements were larger 
and closer together; the land better cultivated, and 
provisions more abundant. During the march, which 
continued near a week, he kept Tuskaluza close to his 
person as security for the peace of the people, who, at 
times, were swarming all around him like bees, — 
though he strove to conceal the motive. With all his 



Nights in Camp. 65 

care and circumspection, however, lie was unable to 
deceive the suspicious and wily chief, who readily 
saw that he was a prisoner, and as readily determined 
to be revenged. On more than one occasion Tuska- 
luza dispatched messengers to Movile, for the hospita- 
ble purpose, he said, of preparing his people to give a 
a fitting reception to the Spaniards, but which, De 
Anasco doubted not, meant a bloody reception : and he 
again and more earnestly besought De Soto to be on 
his guard. But despite these warnings, although 
strengthened by so many well-known circumstances, 
the fearless leader of the expedition left in the camp a 
few miles from Movile the main body of his troops, 
under Don Luis de Moscozo, with instructions to 
follow at the earliest moment, while he pressed for- 
ward to the city with only two hundred men. 

" Movile stood on the bank of the same magnificent 
river,^ which De Soto had crossed two or three days 
before, and down the right bank of which he had since 
marched his army. It was the capital of Tuskaluza's 
dominions. That its inhabitants were warlike, and 
were a people of some ingenuity, seemed evident from 
the manner in which it was built and fortified. The 
houses were immense structures, and were so disposed 
as to form a great central public square, upon which 
all of them fronted. The place was surrounded by 
high walls made of the trunks of huge trees, planted 
on end deeply in the ground, and fastened at top 
securely and firmly together. These were surmounted 
by towers, closely and regularly spaced, between which 
were numerous loopholes for the discharge of arrows 
and stones. In the midst of some marks of rejoicing, 

*The Alabama. 



66 NiaHTS IN Camp. 

not, however, very enthusiastic, the soldiers of De Soto 
made their way through the eastern gate, and between 
the houses to the great square. Don Francisco de 
Anasco, the chief lieutenant present with the little 
band, was fully on the alert. No welcome on the part 
of the Indians would have lulled his suspicions for a 
moment ; the one received only served to increase 
them. He sent Juan Ortiz to ascertain, if possible, 
who were in the houses, any one of which was large 
enough to conceal a thousand men. The interpreter 
returned almost immediately with information,obtained 
through a spy or two in his pay, that they were full of 
warriors, painted, armed and eager for battle. De- 
Anasco communicated the startling facts to De Soto. 
Just then Tuskaluza arose from the block upon which 
he had been seated, and with a haughty inclination of 
his lofty head to the Adelantado said : 

" This is my home. You are welcome. I am much 
chief here. I go now. Prisoner no more. You stay 
here. Move not — I come back soon with other chiefs." 

After this cold and sententious speech, scorning haste 
as indicating fear, he walked slowly and majestically 
in the direction of one of the houses. 

"Don Francisco de Anasco sprang forward to stop 
him ; but two powerful Indians threw themselves in 
his path. With a sweep of his heavy sword he clove 
one — a young chief — to the chin ; but before he could 
release himself from the other, who had grappled him 
about the waist, Tuskaluza had passed beyond his 
reach. This struggle brought an avalanche of Indians 
upon the Spaniards. They poured by hundreds from 
every doorway — all aroused by the death of one of 
their headmen to a pitch of absolute frenzy. The 



Nights in Camp. 67 

deadly war-whoop was given, and fierce screams and 
yells rent the air. The fight instantly commenced, 
and soon became general. The trained soldiers, hold- 
ing themselves firmly and compactly together, and 
facing outwardly, opposed, on every side, a solid front 
of steel to the furious onsets of the Indians, and at 
the same time, slowly moved toward the gate of the 
city, by which they had entered. Headed by De Soto, 
with DeAnasco on his right, they cut their way through 
the struggling mass of enemies, as a gallant ship 
cleaves the surging billows of an angry ocean, until 
they freed themselves from the walls, and were once 
more in the open country. Among the Indians the 
slaughter was fearful ; but undismayed by it, they 
pressed upon the hostile weapons of death with unex- 
ampled ferocity, — using their heavy clubs upon helmet, 
buckler and cuirass with such power that the ringing 
blows could be heard far above the shouts and cries of 
the combatants. At this juncture the main body of the 
army, under Moscozo, reached the spot, and, by a 
determined and vigorous charge, drove the Indiana 
back into the city, — not, however, until the latter had 
captured all the baggage and stores of the expedition. 
Closing the gate, they beat the Spaniards back, by 
raining upon them from everj^ loophole and tower 
along the opposing walls, a merciless shower of arrows 
and stones, when, rushing out again, they renewed the 
battle with their clubs, but were once more, after a 
desperate fight and terrible carnage, driven in the 
enclosure. An assault was now made by the Spaniards 
upon the walls at many points, and having hewed 
down the gates and parts of the adjacent walls with 
their battle-axes, they made openings for the entrance 



68 Nights in Camp. 

of the whole force into the city. As they fought their 
way in 

' At once there rose so wild a yell, 

As all the fiends from heaven that fell, 

Had pealed the banner-cry of hell,' 

and the rush of the Indians was terrific. With them, 
it seemed, the battle had just commenced. There was 
no hesitation — there was no holding back on their part 
anywhere. Down — down they swept from every 
quarter ; some vigorously plying their clubs ; some 
seizing the opposing swords and lances as they were 
raised to strike ; and others leaping upon the shoulders 
of their comrades in advance and precipitating them- 
selves upon the helmeted heads of the enemy, in mad- 
dened efforts, by sheer weight and momentum, to crush 
them to the earth. And woe to the Spaniard who fell; 
for the Indians were instantly piled upon him in such 
numbers that, wounded or unwounded, there was small 
chance of his rising again. 

*' The tall form of Tuskaluza could be seen wherever 
the battle raged hottest and blood flowed thickest, 
encouraging, cheering, and leading his men. Many a 
sword was raised to cut him down ; but, in every 
instance it drank the blood of some devoted follower, 
who threw himself in the way of the descending 
weapon to save the life of his beloved chief. But all 
his heroic exertions were fruitless. The undisciplined 
valor of naked men, armed with clubs and stones, 
could make but little impression upon veteran soldiers, 
sheathed in armor and wielding the deadliest weapons 
known to warfare. The Indians, their best and bravest 
having fallen, were driven back on every side; and 
finally, after a nine hours' struggle, in which nearly 



Nights in Camp. 69 

one-half of those, who had so courageously entered 
into the unequal contest, were slain, the shattered 
remnant was forced to take shelter in the houses. 
The victorious Spaniards, infuriated by their .wounds, 

for every one of them was injured — many seriously 

and by the death of eighty-two of their comrades, 
seized torches to make an end by fire at once of Tuska- 
luza, his people, and his city. 

" Scattered parties of Indians were still to be seen, 
hurrying hither and thither between and around the 
houses, in the effort to escape the vengeance of the 
pursuing Spaniards, as Don Francisco de Anasco 
stopped in the midst of the blood and death of the 
great central square, and leaned heavily upon his 
sword. He was nearly alone, — but few of his men 
being within reach,— and he was not only suffering 
from exhaustion, but from two severe wounds. The 
pain of both, however, was forgotten in a moment, 
when he saw a female spring from the largest one of 
the great buildings on the western side of the square, 
and speed across the area in the direction of himself. 
A single glance satisfied him that the maiden was the 
Fawn of Movile. Scarcely, however, had he time for 
the thought when from the same house issued Tuska- 
luza in eager and rapid pursuit. To call to one or two 
passing soldiers to follow him, and to rush toward the 
flying girl, was the work of an instant. But before he 
could pass one-half of the intervening space, as he had 
to hew his way through a crowd of Indians, who had 
promptly thrown themselves in his way, she was seized 
by her father, and borne again into the house from 
which she had escaped. Having been joined by some 
of his men, De Anasco had succeeded in scattering the 



70 Nights in Camp. 

opposing body of these often beaten but still uncon- 
quered warriors, when the roaring of the flames 
announced that the efforts of the Spaniards to fire the 
several houses had been successful, and the entire 
city was in a blaze. Though not unused to scenes of 
atrocity in the Spanish-Indian wars, he looked with 
horror upon a conclusion so terrible to the bloody 
work of the day. 

"Just then an opening was made in the roof of the 
house of Tuskaluza; and through it in full view of all 
in the square, slowly came the great chief leading his 
lovely daughter. About that house, as well as all the 
others, the flames were now madly leaping and roar- 
ing; and yet within them not a sound was heard. The 
Indians were evidently determined not to survive 
their slaughtered brethren and the ruin of their 
country. Tuskaluza stood erect upon his blazing 
roof, and holding his daughter by the hand, chant- 
ed his death-song. The magnificient yet awful picture 
hushed the shouts of the exultant Spaniards; and the 
wailing notes, — even the words, — could be heard. *I 
go,' sang he, * I go from sorrow to joy. I go with my 
braves to our fathers. I go with them to the happy 
hunting grounds prepared for us by the Great Spirit. 
It is well — it is well !' The roof suddenly sank amid 
a sea of billowy flame; and one of the nobliest of 
savage heroes and patriots was no more. 

" With the death of Tuskaluza this history 



properly ends. To satisfy, however, those curious 
readers, who may wish to know exactly what became 
of De Anasco, it may be well to say, that he continued 
with De Soto, during his subsequent, and most dis- 
astrous wanderings in the wilderness; that he was 



Nights in Camp. Y1 

present, and assisted at the burial of the chivalrous 
but unfortunate and ^broken-hearted chieftain in the 
great Father of Waters; and that he was one of the 
few, who made their way through terrible hardships 
and dangers to Mexico. Here for a time he was lost 
sight of. He certainly, however, got back to his native 
country; as many of the Spanish court-chronicles, of 
the year 1544, are filled with glowing accounts of the 
marriage of Don Francisco de Anasco and the beauti- 
ful Dona Inez de Soto. It also appears from these 
veracious and most interesting histories, that he rose 
high in the favor of Charles Y, — becoming one of the 
confidential officers of that renowned monarch, both 
at the court and in the field. But it may well be 
doubted, whether all the charms of his wife — and she 
was said to be a pearl of discretion and sweetness, as 
well as beauty — or the gracious favor of the Emperor, 
kept him from often thinking in secret, with feelings 
that the gentle Inez might not have sanctioned, of the 
sad fate of the artless and lovely Fawn of Movile." 



PAKT III— NIGHTS IN CAMP. 

SOUTHERN MANHOOD— MAMMY C^SAR. 

And let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
Forever, blessing those that look on them. 

— Tennyson's Princess. 

And could my heart's blood give thy wish to thee 

I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts ; 

Thy dying father comes upon my soul 

With that same look, with wiiich he gave thee to me; 

I hold thee in my arms a powerless babe, 

While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty 

Fixed her faint eyes on mine. 

— Coleridge. 

'T^HE servants had barely cleared away the wreck of 
■*- the supper, and the dishes, from the table, around 
which the party in camp were seated, when Charley 
"Wenker, who had lying before him a package wrapped 
in blue paper, called loudly for the promised essay 
from Colonel Ernley. 

*'Yes," said Maltmau, with a sort of groan, "let us 
have Ernley's discourse. Charley calls it a coming 
essay ; but I know it is going to be a regular-built 
speech. If Ernley were to write history, he would, as 
Macauley says Fox did — write it after the manner of 
an oration." 

" What have you got there, Charley," asked Ernley, 
pointing to the bundle. 

" Oh, never mind ! — you go on with your part of the 
show," replied Charley. 



Nights in Camp. 73 

** Perhaps you wish to submit some of your literary 
sinnings to the pity of your friends, — if so, I will give 
way with pleasure. I should dislike to balk you in 
any thing upon which you had set your heart." 

Charley did not answer, but looked somewhat defi- 
antly at Ernley, who all the while was straightening 
out the sheets of the manuscript that he had taken 
from his pocket. Having arranged it to his satisfac- 
tion, and premising that the facts and figures therein 
given, with regard to the war and reconstruction, were 
gleanings from journals of the day, he read as follows : 



" Justice has never been done the character of the 
Southern people. Its imperfections have been mag- 
nified ; and its excellences, in some instances, have 
been wholly denied, and, in others, but partially and 
grudgingly admitted. When, however, that character 
shall have been fully investigated and fairly weighed^ 
it will be found to combine elements not only of the 
highest purity, but those even of the highest grandeur. 

"Macaulay has somewhere said substantially that 
a people, who are a dominant race, have peculiar 
virtues and peculiar vices, — the virtues and vices of 
masters as opposed to the virtues and vices of slaves, — 
that the character of such a people, in one view, is 
noble and chivalrous, and irresistibly extorts applause ; 
in another, insolvent and cruel, and imperatively in- 
vites disapprobation. This statement, though no 
doubt correct in its general application, is not entirely 
so, when applied to the white men of the South. 
With them, indeed, as a class, all the higher virtues 
peculiar to a superior caste, are found to exist, but 



74 Nights in Camp. 

they are associated with none of the darker and more 
repulsive vices. While these men are 'haughty and 
imperious, they are brave, truthful and honest. While 
they are rash and hasty in adopting an opinion and 
forming a wish, and self-willed in maintaining that 
opinion and in pursuing the object of that wish, they 
have, in large measure, not only the generosity, which 
leads men to relieve the distress, and extenuate the 
faults, of others, but the sense of justice, which im- 
pels them to repair every injury, and make amends 
for every wrong, of which they have themselves been 
guilty. While, in shunning dishonor as the greatest 
of earthly evils, they are quick to take offense, and 
quick to right themselves by the strong hand, they are 
equally ready to accept with satisfaction every rea- 
sonable atonement. While they are tenacious of their 
privileges either real or assumed, and proud of their 
pure Caucasian blood, they are so tenacious of right, 
so full of charity, and have withal so intense a self- 
respect, that oppression and tyranny, which those 
privileges and that pride of race, have otherwise made 
somewhat easy, are rendered well-nigh impossible to 
them. Having at the fireside, woman, who, in every 
sense of the word, is the light and inspiration of 
home — woman, who is adorned with every domestic 
virtue and every christian grace — woman, who has as 
little thought of stepping beyond the limits of the 
circle, where she reigns supreme, into the dust and 
turmoil of man's arena, as she has of arraying herself 
in his clothing, taking charge of his business, and 
fighting his battles — woman, who is looked up to, as a 
sort of superior intelligence, and treated with a lofty 
courtesy, and a refined tenderness, which, like the 



Nights in Camp. 75 

gentle south wind of Shakespeare, breathing upon a 
bank of violets, both steals and imparts odor, or like 
that poets mercy which is twice blessed — blessing the 
one who gives as well as the one who receives — these 
Southern men have not only those high and princely 
virtues, which exist in the depths of all noble natures, 
but along with them, mutually quickening and strength- 
ening each other, those quiet home virtues so implaca- 
bly and utterly hostile to immorality in public and in 
private affairs — in business and in amusements. 

" To show that this estimate of the Southern people 
is not at all exaggerated, — is not the mere partial 
opinion of a Southern man, but on the contrary, as far 
as it goes, is emphatically just and true, — they can 
point to certain indisputable facts in their history. 

" They can point to the fact, that when their young 
and able bodied men were taken from home by the 
demands of a great war, the inferior, then a subject 
race, guarded well and vigilantly the property and 
families of the absent warriors, and industriously tilled 
the soil for the maintenance of all — in truth was an 
orderly and faithful, as when the means of compelling 
obedience were abundant; and although, with the 
coming of peace and the coming of freedom and citi- 
zenship to the members of that race, the promptings 
of ignorance and vanity, on the one hand, and the 
seductions of gilded and specious promises, on the 
other, led them, or rather a part of them, away from 
those, whom they had before served, it was only for a 
time, — they speedily came back to the old support and 
the old friendship, and to both they have remained 
resolutely faithful. The volcano, upon which Southern 
society was so long said to have been resting, and 



76 Nights in Camp. 

which, it was alleged, only constant and vigorous press- 
ure could keep from fearful and destructive eruptions, 
was found by the would-be-alarmists, upon the removal 
of the so-called pressure, to be no volcano at all, — 
instead of the liquid lava-fires of repressed hate below, 
were seen the limpid waters of unobtrusive gratitude 
and affection, whose flow subsequent events have only 
served to deepen and to strengthen. 

"They can point to the fact, that, if among them 
duelism has not been sufficiently discountenanced, no 
favor whatever has been shown to socialism, agrarian- 
ism, communism, — if among them have happened 
breaches of the peace, the disturbances have seldom 
been the wide-spread, lasting and disastrous work of 
mobs, in lawless depredation upon the rights and inter- 
ests of others, — if among them have occurred murders, 
there have been but few of those murders, which have 
super-added to other horrors the atrocious violation 
of the closest domestic ties, and fewer still, if possi- 
ble, of those other kinds of crime, which can fitly be 
characterized only by the epithets of disgustingly 
mean and desperately wicked. 

" They can point to the fact, that Southern woman 
has never unsexed herself. The simple-minded Sir 
Hugh Evans, after peeping under the disguise of the 
supposed old woman of Brentford, and seeing there 
the shaggy face of Falstaff says : 'I like not when a 
woman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under 
her muffler.' No such beard can be discovered under 
the muffler of Southern woman. She has never sympa- 
thized with the woman-rights' movement in other parts 
of the world. She has never asked the privilege of 
the ballot-box. She has never attempted to shine as 



Nights in Camp. 77 

public lecturer or orator. She has never offered to 
guide or direct any part of the machinery of govern- 
ment. She has been rarely the author of crime, and, 
it may be added, what is almost as much to her honor, 
as rarely the victim of crime ; and, indeed, never such 
victim, except where the perpetrator was, not partly, 
but wholly, a beast. Modesty, and all other true 
womanly traits, have so hedged her around, and ele- 
vated her above the ordinary plane of humanity, that 
it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, — she has been 
beyond the reach of such evils; vice has shrunk 
abashed from her presence; calmly and serenely, a 
very queen, she has walked only amid devoted worship- 
pers. 

"And finally they can point to the fact, that their 
public offices, as well as their public places of instruc- 
tion and amusement, have been strictly devoted to the 
objects for which they were instituted. While from 
the latter, whatever might be wanting in a tendency 
to improve and elevate, has been rigidly excluded ; in 
the former, every instance of corruption has been fol- 
lowed by the swift punishment, and, what is almost as 
much to the purpose, by the disgrace and social ostra- 
cism of the offender — he has been at once and forever 
* pilloried on infamy's high stage.' Their halls of legis- 
lation have been chambers for the making of good 
laws, and their courts of justice, tribunals for their 
faithful execution, — neither have ever been marts of 
bribery nor engines of oppression. Their theatres 
have been houses for the representation of the legiti- 
mate drama, — never for the propagation of vice, nor 
the exhibition of indecency. Their lecture-rooms have 
been places for sound moral and intellectual instruc- 



78 Nights in Camp. 

tion, — never for the poisonous teachings of rabid polit- 
ical economists, strong, or rather coarse-minded women, 
literary mountebanks and blatant infidels . And their 
pulpits have been sacred stands, never public plat- 
forms,— stands for preaching the word of God ; never 
platforms Jor^publishing the word of man,— stands for 
proclaiming salvation, because of a crucified and risen 
Christj^neverlplatforms for^announcing safety, because 
of^aMead and buried hell, — stands for enforcing the 
living^truths of ^Heavenly wisdom ; never platforms for 
presenting the^effete/dogmas of worldly isms,— stands 
over^which^it ^may^well be^said, the white wings of 
angels have rustled in the soft and life-giving atmos- 
pherejof gospel^prayer and;praise, faith and love ; never 
platforms from which these celestial messengers have 
been driven, in fluttering dismay and horror, by the 
icy breathings of a self-sufficient intellectuality, or the 
fiery gusts of partisan prejudice and passion. 

"But enough has been said to demonstrate that the 
Southern people are endowed with the golden virtues, 
which go to make up a good people. The question 
now arises, — Have they the iron virtues, which, along 
with the others, go to make up a truly great people? 
In other words, have they firmness, fortitude, resolu- 
tion,— have they enterprise, pluck, energy? These 
stalwart virtues have been most persistently and clam- 
orously denied them by the people of other states — 
inded so persistently and so clamorously, that some 
faint echoes of the disparaging words have even been 
heard from Southern hill-tops and mountain-sides. 
It is true, that a sort of spasmodic resolution and 
enterprise is, in the midst of these detractions, accorded 
the Southern people, which is represented, as were the 



Nights in Camp. 79 

famous claymore charges of the Scottish Highlanders, 
under Montrose and Dundee, to be bold, furious and 
irresistible, but soon at an end — speedily exhausted by 
its own violence. A glance, however, at the disastrous 
days of the late war, the still more disastrous days of 
reconstruction, and the few years of imperfect peace 
that immediately followed, will show the utter ground- 
lessness of the aspersion, and, at the same time, excite 
the wonder of candid men that it has been so long and 
so pertinaciously maintained, with something of con- 
tempt for those, who parrot-like, have uttered the cry 
nearer home. 

1. "The Southern people wanting in firmness — 
resolution ! What are the facts as given by the history 
of those days? Let us briefly examine them. Desti- 
tute of many of the munitions of war, hemmed in by 
sea and land, with resources scanty in the beginning 
and every day diminishing, encouraged by but slight 
hopes of final success at home, and by not even the 
knowledge of good wishes from abroad, the Southern 
people steadily faced for four long years of war, a 
people, among whom were five or six times the fighting 
men, and twenty or thirty times the available wealth, 
with the numberless advantages which wealth ever 
commands, — a people having possession and control 
of the sword and purse of the Federal Government, — 
and a people into whose open ports were poured all 
the while a steadily increasing stream of arms and sol- 
diers from surrounding nations. The Southern armies 
aggregating for the first three campaigns, but little 
more than a half million of men, ill-armed, ill-equipped, 
ill-fed and ill-clothed, — frequently victorious, some- 
times beaten back, but always presenting an unbroken 



80 Nights in Camp. 

front, — held grimly at bay the vast bodies of Northern 
soldiery, aggregating for the same period more than 
two millions of men, bountifully supplied with all the 
necessaries and conveniences known to civilized war- 
fare, and armed with weapons of death furnished by 
the inventive genius of the world. In the closing 
campaign of the great struggle the effective strength 
of the Southern armies was so much reduced, and the 
effective strength of the Northern armies was so much 
increased, that the hostile arrays stood at about, on an 
average, one to eight ; and yet the fight went bravely 
on. And, when the last litHe army of jaded and ragged 
and starving 'rebels' made their final stand, and looked 
around upon the broad cordon of foes, which, bristling 
with bayonets, was slowly and mercilessly tightening 
about them, they quailed not ; but with ranks closed, 
and muskets poised, they unflinchingly held their 
ground — ready for a bloody death, but never for sur- 
render. That bloody death, it should be added, was 
only prevented by the great christian heart of their 
matchless leader, who knew that the inevitable end had 
come ; and, amid the sobs and groans of the few mis- 
erable survivors of that grand army, whose prowess 
shall ever live in history and song, he issued the or- 
ders, which grounded their guns, sheathed their swords, 
and folded their flag forever ! The Southern people 
lacking in resolution! What was this? I repeat the 
question, — what was this? But even this is not all. 
These Southern people saw, as is further shown by the 
history of those days, the upheaval, by which the whole 
social and civil fabric, that they had so thoughtfully 
and carefully reared and that they so devotedly loved, 
was laid in ruins. They saw their fountains of law 



Nights in Camp. 81 

and fountains of justice polluted. They saw in their 
midst ignorance and infamy in power. The saw knaves 
the keepers of their public purses and the arbiters of 
their private rights. They saw themselves,— gentle- 
men proud of their standing and descent— gentlemen, 
who shrank with a shudder from the faintest touch of 
aught that suggested degradation,— subordinated to 
their former slaves, just from the lowest drudgery of 
the field and the household. Although they saw these 
and more than these horrors — were subjected to these 
and more than these indignities ; — and, although the 
light of hope waxed dim, and the light of happiness 
was altogether lost amid the surrounding darkness, 
they, with unbending quietude, bore all these evils for 
days; for months; for years. The Southern people 
lacking in firmness — resolution ! Here was an exhibi- 
tion of the highest firmness! — of a firmness, patient, 
long-suffering, chivalrous ! — of a resolution unexam- 
pled in the history of human affiiction and human en- 
durance ! 

2. "And the Southern people, wanting in enterprise, 
pluck, energy! Look at the facts as still further given 
by the history of those days ! The war left the greater 
part of their country a desert. Piles of ashes and 
blackened chimney-stacks upon thousands of hill-tops 
and in thousands of valleys, told where stately man- 
sions and substantial farm-houses had once stood, and 
square mile after square mile of unenclosed common 
in every state, where once had shone fields rich with 
the yields of cotton and corn. Railroads were broken 
up ; mills, gin houses and bridges were burned ; stock 
of all sorts were scattered, and destroyed; and the 
small remnant of provisions left were being consumed. 



82 Nights in Camp. 

But the crowning disaster is yet to be mentioned : — A 
large part of the youthful vigor and enterprise, by 
which the foregoing and other losses were mainly to 
be met and supplied, was sleeping under the bloody 
sod of numerous battle-grounds. Statistics show that 
the Southern people lost by the war, at least three- 
fourths of all their possessions, and at least one-fifth of 
the men who could be made subject to military duty. 
But, although thus beaten and impoverished, these 
Southern people had to face other trials and shoulder 
other burdens. The spoliations to which they were 
subjected, by the measures of reconstruction, may be 
surmised by reference to those, which nine of the 
Southern States had to bear, — Alabama, Arkansas, 
Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South 
Carolina and Texas. The public debts in those states 
in 1868, aggregated about fifty million dollars ; in 1871, 
about two hundred and fifteen million dollars. In these 
three years of rule founded on the reconstruction system 
about one hundred and sixty-five million dollars of debts 
were piled upon the backs of a people nearly prostrate 
by the loss of three-fourths of their v/ealth. And the 
local taxes paid by the people of those states in 1860, 
when they had four-fourths of that property were only 
about ten million dollars, — in 1870, vv^hen they had but 
one-fourth, were about twenty-five million dollars. 
Does it not seem remarkable that a people could have 
survived a pressure so terrible? Does it not seem that 
the spirit would have been crushed and exertion para- 
lyzed ? Was it so, however, in this instance ? What 
are the facts ? Sad, but not despairing, wearied but 
not broken down, tottering and reeling under the load 
but never falling, the Southern people struggled on, — 



Nights in Camp. 83 

now slowly advancing, — now stationary, — now driven 
back, — ever and anon seeing the gains of one day 
swept away on the morrow, — but still cheered by such 
gains, they fought their way during those gloomy days 
inch by inch, to something of ease and comfort ; until 
by one supreme effort, they threw off the governments, 
that had been eating out and wasting their substance, 
and assumed the management of their own local affairs. 
They immediately, but steadfastly and deliberately, 
proceeded to 

'RiDg out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring out the false, ring in the true.' 

Public credit and the other agencies of public welfare, 
at once dutifully and faithfully attended the business- 
walks of Southern officials ; and plenty and happiness 
once more sat constantly in the light and warmth of 
Southern fire-sides. The Southern people lacking in 
enterprise — energy ! Here was an exhibition of the 
grandest enterprise, — strong, persistent, unfailing, — 
an energy as brilliantly active, as it was stubbornly 
enduring, and surmounting obstacles as grave as ever 
met man in his career upon earth ! — a manhood, indeed, 
to which the Southern people can poiiit with satisfac- 
tion throughout all the ages, and which should ever be 
regarded by the unconquerable white blood of the 
world with sentiments of pride and admiration. 

"A few words now, in conclusion, with regard to a 
phrase, by no means delectable in signification, how- 
ever much so in sound, which has lately been intro- 
duced into this country by some who have failed to ap- 
preciate the character of the Southern people. That 
phrase is made up of only three little words, but, in 



84 Nights in Camp. 

their collocation, they are weighty words— The New 
South ! Many in our midst, who have been so indus- 
triously ringing the changes upon the phrase, are per- 
haps scarcely aware of the meaning attached to it by 
the originator and his immediate followers. They 
want, let it be understood, a new South ! — not the old 
South improved, but a new South ! — not the old struc- 
ture strengthened, where it may have been weakened, 
and repaired where it may have been damaged, but a 
new structure — new in foundation, new in fashion, and 
new in material ! — not the old habits, manners and cus- 
toms, not the old ideas in social, political and business 
matters, with such improvement as would result from 
natural growth, quickened and enriched, but new 
habits, manners and customs, new ideas in social, 
political and business matters, — in short, the substitu- 
tion of Northern civilization for Southern civiliza- 
tion ! The hopes of these pseudo-reformers can never 
be realized; but if they could be and were realized, no 
greater misfortune, no greater disaster, could befall the 
whole country. North as well as South, in the loss, if in 
nothing else, of the old Southern conservatism, and the 
old Southern statesmanship. But let it be repeated : 
These hopes can never be realized. The old South is 
not dead yet ; nor, as has been made plain by previous 
remarks, does she intend to die, or suffer herself to be 
destroyed. 

"The revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought 
thousands of Huguenots to England, — she profited by 
their inventive talents ; the elevation of William, Prince 
of Orange, to the throne, brought thousands of Dutch- 
men to England, — she profited by their industry ; the 
union with Scotland brought thousands of Scotchmen 



Nights in Camp. 85 

to England, — she profited by tlieir thrift; the organ- 
ization of the East India Company brought the 
Orient to the feet of England, — she profited by its 
wealth ; — but she was old England still ! — the ground- 
work of her national character was the same ; and her 
institutions, amid all advancement and progress, were 
the legitimate outgrowth of principles implanted in her 
bosom, before they were digested into form, and wrung 
by the iron hands of the old barons from the tyrannical 
grasp of the unprincipled John. So the South will 
welcome and profit by Northern industries and North- 
ern capital. And though, by the help of these, she 
will become stronger and more prosperous, and be 
arrayed in a newer and richer dress, she will be at 
heart the old South still ! — In her great manufactures 
brightened and invigorated by her yet greater agricul- 
ture, she will be the old South ! — In her respect for 
law and order ; in her love of official and individual 
integrit}^ ; in her detestation of all her meanness and 
baseness, — she will be the old South ! In her hostility 
to rings and monopolies — to every species of corporate 
greed and oppression; in her hatred of nepotism, 
rationalism, socialism, communism, and all sorts of 
mobism ; in her reverence for honor ; in her reverence 
for woman ; in her reverence for religion, — she will be 
the old South ! Indeed in all the elements of a splendid 
manhood, — a manhood that loves light rather than 
darkness, because its deeds are not evil, — a manhood 
ever ready to. labor and to wait — to do and to suffer, — 
she will be the old South — the old South — forever and 
forever !" 



86 Nights in Camp. 

"Well and bravely done, Ernlej," shouted the en- 
thu'siastic C3harley. "That 'Southern Manhood' ora- 
tion suits me exactly. It is splendid. In proof of 
that, look at Maltman! He was fast asleep last night 
in the midst of the adventures of Tuskaluza, — but he 
is wide awake now, — in fact he didn't bat an eye from 
the beginning to the ending of your * speech.' While, 
however, I endorse all of its main points, I very much 
fear that the 'Old South,' of whose permanence the 
wish to you is, perhaps, father to the thought, is about 
done-for, or, at any rate, is being done-for. The progres- 
sive 'new' will likely be found too much for the con- 
servative ' old.' Before the year 1900, those of us who 
are living will very probably see that many of those 
old-time Southern virtues, of which you so eloquently 
speak in your peroration, will have 'evanished amid 
the storm' — of immigration. 

"Now," continued Charle}^ who talked so rapidly 
that no one could put in a word, " I have a companion- 
piece to the one that has just been given." Taking up 
his bundle and unrolling it, " I want to read a sketch 
or tale, written by a friend, which exhibits one of the 
most delightful phases of the old Southern life, — of 
which but the wreck now remains, — and which in a 
few years, say, by the aforesaid A. D. 1900, will be 
simply a memory." 

"Charley!" exclaimed Haverwood, suddenly and 
warningly, who, perhaps, knew what was coming from 
the color of the paper in which the ma^nuscript had 
been wrapped, — "Charley, you are not going to read 
that stuff?" 

" I most assuredly am," answered Charley, decidedly. 
"I would like to know why I shouldn't? — it belongs 



Nights in Camp. 87 

to me, and besides — But permit me first to tell you all 
how I got it. I was in Montgomeiy, a month or so 
ago ; and while there, of course, I passed most of my 
time in Haverwood's office. Sitting there one morn- 
ing when his mail was brought, I heard him give vent 
to an energetic ' pish ! ' as he opened and took from a 
large envelope a roll of manuscript. He remarked to 
me, after a while, that he had sent, a few weeks before, 

an article to the C Magazine, and ' that,' continued 

he, tossing a note over to me, 'is the result of it.' I 
read the note, which was from the assistant editor. 
It said simply that the article was well written, and 
then went on : * but it just misses the literary touch 
which would make a story of this character desirable 
for us.' Haverwood also allowed me to read the story 
(he subsequently gave it to me); and, while I am no 
critic, I must say that I know when incidents of 
plantation life are truthfully described, and when 
those incidents are worthy of preservation ; and feel- 
ing that both are met in this story of 'Mammy Caesar,' 
I have decided to read it to you — Mr. Haverwood's 
wishes to the contrary notwithstanding. So here 
goes:" 

" Mammy C^sar. 

" three episodes in the life of an alabama negro 
soon after the war. 



"The 'great house,' in Virginia-negro parlance, 
stood on the hill. The cabin nestled in a cosy nook 
not far from its foot. The one, slate-colored, many- 
roomed, and low-roofed, with brown chimneys piercing 
every angle above, and vine-clad verandas enwreathing 



88 Nights in Camp. 

every angle below, amid thickets of evergreens and 
flowering shrubs, about which, on either side from the 
huge arched gateway on the lane, swept broad grav- 
elled carriage-roads, fringed with stately oaks, showed 
a comfortable planter's home in Alabama, not far from 
the beautiful waters of the Warrior Eiver, during the 
latter part of May, 1870. The other, an ordinary cabin 
built of hewed logs, well chinked and whitewashed, 
with a rough porch in front, beautified by a few vines 
curling up the posts, and trailing from the eaves, 
showed a comfortable negro's home in the same 
locality and at the same time. In the one was domi- 
ciled |Colonel Eodman Breck, his family and niece, — 
in the other an old darkey known by the rather singu- 
lar name of ' Mammy Caesar.' With the one these 
sketches have but little to do, — but, as with the other 
they will be found to have much, a few words more 
of description will not be considered out of place. 

"This cabin was the counterpart of many others 
which were to be seen scattered over the plantation, 
except that in situation it was slightly more pictur- 
esque ; and besides, it had the advantage of two glass 
windows in front, and a brick chimney through the 
centre, while the others had only openings for win- 
dows, flanked by wooden shutters on the sides, and 
stick and dirt chimneys at the ends. A gigantic oak 
grew immediately in its rear, so closely indeed as to 
give the small structure the appearance of resting 
securely against its sturdy trunk, while its wide- 
branching arms were thrown protectingly over the 
moss-covered roof before it. Another large oak shaded 
the path, which connected the cabin through the level 
patch of greensward with the lane, — on the opposite 



Nights in Camp. 89 

side of which stretched out, as far as the eye could 
reach, a heavy belt of pine forest. Within a stone's 
throw of the door, and directly at the base of the hill, 
over a rocky ledge that jutted from its side, gushed a 
fine spring, the stream from which, as it made its way 
over a pebbly bed down the slope, could be heard but 
not seen through the thickly interlacing bushes on its 
banks. 

"Just at the moment of inviting the reader's atten- 
tion to this quiet spot, Mammy Caesar was on the porch 
with a book in his hand, into which he now and then 
peered intently, through the iron-rimmed spectacles 
perched upon his broad, flat nose. His grizzled hair 
and wrinkled face said as plainly as any words could 
do, that he was far past sixty years of age ; but his 
light and active movements, as he shifted his position 
from one side of the porch to the other, under no doubt 
the puzzling impatience generated by the abstruse 
character of his studies, indicated as unmistakably 
that he had still within him much of the vim and vital- 
ity of youth, and, it may be, a little of its ordinary 
quickness ana irascibility of temper too.^ 

" As he took his place for about the third time at 
the angle of the porch next the hall on the hill, and 
leaning against the post, gazed long and anxiously up 
and down, and down and up the pathway, that, passing 
by the spring, wandered with many wide curves be- 
tween the two homes, — ' linked sweetness long drawn 
out,' — for it was a veritable lazily-winding path of 
roses, — he muttered : ' Now I does wish Miss Elvie 
would come 'long — I does fur sho'. It's Sat'day 
ev'nin', an' de summon mus' be fixt up. I wonner if 
she done forgit ole Caesar, an' his preachin' trubbles?' 



90 Nights in Camp. 

" He heard a merry laugh away up the side of the 
hill ; and suddenly out of a clump of evergreens and 
roses he saw his Miss Elvie coming. All the impatient 
twitchings at once disappeared from old Caesar's 
features, and left nothing there but the expression of 
an affection as calm and beautiful as any that ever 
lighted up the face of a father for his child. In the 
meantime the little girl came on with her companion — 
a boy. She was not more than twelve years of age, 
and, inexpressibly light and airy in her movements, 
she fluttered along the pathway in her dress of pink 
muslin, like a butterfly or humming-bird after the 
flowers on either side. Her blue eyes flashed out the 
light of a sunny temperament, and her rosy lips gave 
forth its music, as she laughed and talked with the 
youth at her side, while her golden curls — her hat was 
in her hand — danced in time to every note, by 
the rapidly shifting motion of her willowy person. 
The boy was three or four years older, and more than 
a head taller than the little fairy beside him ; dark of 
complexion, with brown hair and eyes. The expression 
of his face was serious and thoughtful ; and his manli- 
ness and refinement were strikingly and attractively 
displayed in the watchful care, with which he assisted 
his lovely companion over rough obstructions, that 
now and then presented themselves in the steeper 
places down the slope of the hill. 

"*We must stop awhile,' said she, checking the rip- 
pling laugh, with which she had greeted some previous 
remark of the boy, — ' we must stop awhile, before going 
among the pines yonder, at Mammy Caesar's cabin 
down there. I help him every Saturday evening in his 
Bible lesson. He is waiting for me now.' 



Nights in Camp. 91 

" 'Why do you call him Mammy Caesar?' 
" 'Don't yon know?' replied Elvie,— 'but, of course, 
you don't. It has been a long — long time since you 
were last here to see Uncle Kodman ; and besides, 
your mammy is no doubt a woman, and you conse- 
quently think my mammy ought to be a woman too. 
But mine, although a man, is just as kind and gentle, 
and just as loving, as if he was a woman. In truth, he 
is as good to me as your mammy is to you — better per- 
haps. He was raised up with papa ; and he followed 
him to the war; and he nursed him through his long 
sickness caused by that awful wound at Gettysburg. 
It is said' — she dropped her voice to a whisper, as she 
fixed her eyes wide open and round upon those of the 
boy, expressive of a sort of grateful wonder, — 'that he 
carried papa off the field on his shoulders, in the midst 
of the battle, when the shot and shell were hissing and 
bursting all around. Four years ago when papa died,' 
continued she, her eyes filling with tears, ' from the 
effects of the wound which never healed, hf^ was rest- 
ing in Mammy Caesar's arms, and he told him never to 
desert his family. Mamma, you know, did not remain 
long behind papa. When she was dying she singled 
out Mammy Caesar of all at her bedside, and asked him 
to hold up her head. He stooped and raised it on the 
pillow. Her very last words were, — 'Caesar, watch 
over my little girl.' And truly has he stood by the 
promise he made to both. Yes, he certainly has done 
his part toward taking care of me.' With a smile, as 
she thought of his devoted attendance for so many 
years, she continued more brightly, — ' He has been my 
daily shadow ever since the summer of 1866 : — ' a black 
shadow,' you say. Master Frank!' — making a moue at 



92 Nights in Camp. 

him, whicli was so rosy and sweet, that the boy who 
would have given the pony that he prized above all his 
earthly possessions, for the privilege of kissing it but 
once, — ' true, a black shadow, but a constant and faith- 
ful one — dear, good, ugly, foolish and loving old Mammy 
Caesar ! Now, don't he deserve the name I have given 
him?' 

"Leaving the boy at the spring, who slowly followed 
her, she ran to the old man, as he sprang from the 
porch to meet her, and took him gently by the hand, 
exclaiming : 'Here I am at last, Mammy Caesar, — and 
I have brought Cousin Frank to see you too !' 

" 'Yes, here you is, an' I's more'n glad to see you. 
I's alius glad to see you; but when I's in trubble, I's 
more'n glad to see you. An' 'low me. Miss Elvie, jist 
to hint in 'dition, dat yo' Cousin Frank is welcum 'long 
wid you — mighty welcum.' 

"'Well, what is the trouble now. Mammy Caesar?' 
asked his little friend. 

" 'Tomorrer I 'spec' to preach on de parrybul uv de 
Good Samarrytin, an' I want you to tell me all 'bout 
him. You say las' week you bin studyin' de lesson uv 
de Good Samarrytin in yo' Sund'y school. You can 
gimme den all de pints uv de case, to de full — to de 
full,' repeated he emphatically. 

" The little teacher took the Bible — old Caesar had 
his finger at the place, — and, in a low, sweet voice, 
read the parable, and then lifting up her eyes to the 
old man's eager face, she explained to him all that it 
was intended to illustrate. It is to be doubted if any 
one could have so filled old Caesar's soul with the 
loving spirit of the story, which fell from the lips of 
Him, who was the incarnation of love, as was done by 



KiGHTS IN Camp. 93 

this little girl, in her simple and childish but earnest 
words. 

" 'Den if I unnerstan' you, an' I 'spec' I do, de sum 
uv de whole subjec' is jist dis : yo' nabur is not only 
de one, who live close to you, but de one who live fur 
off — in fac' ev'ry one dat you run up ag'inst; an' you 
do de part uv a good nabur, when you is a Samarrytin 
to a pusson, whedder you knows him or not, or, 
whedder you likes him or not.' 

" 'Yes, and you must be willing to help him, whether 
he can help you or not. Let me make it plainer. You 
help Uncle Eodman : he can help you back, — there is 
some good in that, but not so much. You help me 
too, though I am not able to do anything for you : 
there is a heap of good in thai' 

" 'You do nuffin' fur me. Miss Elvie ! — you do nuffin' 
fur me!' exclaimed the old negro impulsively. 'Mars 
Eodman 'commodit me wid meat and close — dey is de 
cumfuts uv de body — you freshes me wid de cumfuts 
uv de soul' — and he laid his hand upon the rich, clus- 
tering curls of the shapely head, with an expression of 
fondness, almost of adoration indeed, which lit up his 
dusky face, as the sun in setting does a heavy cloud- 
bank in the western sky. 'You comes to me like de 
light 'fru dat crack dar,' — pointing to a stream of sun- 
shine, which had made its way through an opening in 
the roof of the porch — 'De light from yo' presence 
goes right 'fru an' 'fru dis ole body, an' keeps me bright 
day in an' day out, wid no trubble uv darkness what- 
sumever, tills you comes to see me agin. You's de 
very life uv dis ole nigger sho'.' 

"'You's a-gwine, you tells me,' continued Mammy 
Caesar, as, after a pause, the boy and girl started down 



94 Nights in Camp. 

the path to his gate, hand in hand, — 'You's a-gwine to 
walk to de river fru de pines. It's a nice walk 'long 
do big road to de night-fishin' hole. Don't stray off de 
road, — an' come back soon. I's not 'zackly 'fraid fur 
Miss Elvie to take dat walk, 'dough summut lonesum', 
wid you by her side, Mars. Frank! You's 'mos' a man 
now, an' I reckin you kin take care uv her. But I's 
sorter jubous 'bout it, — an' I ivill be 'fraid, I tells you 
boff, an' mighty 'fraid at dat, if you stays down dar 
long. A half-hour. Miss Elvie — free-quarters enny 
way — plenty long 'nuff — plenty long fur sich an ev'nin' 
walk. You mus' git back by dat time, or you'll fin' ole 
Caesar a comin' to look for you.' 

"The boy and the girl had passed through the little 
gate, crossed the lane, and had entered the shadows 
cast by the great pines, before the old negro had con- 
cluded his anxious and somewhat inconsistent admoni- 
tions. Whether old Csesar was exactly afraid or not, 
the children had scarcely disappeared, before he had 
locked the door of his cabin, and, with his big stick 
under his arm, was slowly walking in the same direc- 
tion under the pines." 

*'EP. SECOND. 

"The next Saturday morning after the event just re- 
corded, Mammy Caesar, with Ephraim Jones, a colored 
brother, was on his way to Mount Zion Chapel to at- 
tend to a matter of business connected with the ser- 
vices which were to be held there the following day. 
The low, roughly-boarded church-building, with a 
shingled cupola or belfry that looked exactly like a 
beehive, stood in a little grove somewhat back from 
the main road, about a mile from Caesar's cabin. The 



Nights in Camp. 95 

two men — one the preacher and the other a deacon of 
Mount Zion Chapel— were much annoyed, perhaps 
slightly angered, to find, when they reached the place, 
that four of the younger members of their charge, — 
Peter Downs, Bill Trigg, Eben Short and Crip Lane, — 
were playing a game of marbles upon the hard, 
smooth and well shaded area immediately in front 
of the building. The two church officials said nothing 
however, as they moved towards the open door ; but 
old Caesar could not resist the temptation of walking 
briskly through the ring, and brushing the marbles 
to the right and left, with his huge feet as he passed, 
just as Peter Downs sent his marble, a very large 
and brightly painted one, rapidly rolling over the 
exact spot where Mammy Caesar's brogans were com- 
mitting such havoc. Unfortunately the owner of the 
brogans, in the innocent pastime of kicking the mar- 
bles about, was not paying much attention to the 
security of his footing; and happening, as he 
made what he intended for his final and most 
destructive gyration, to step full upon the 
one that was rolling as aforesaid, his heels flew 
up, and he measured his length, by no means deliber- 
ately, upon the hard ground. The severity of the fall 
not only disturbed the serenity of the old preacher's 
back and head, but that of his temper as well, — it has 
already been suggested that he was somewhat im- 
patient and irascible, — for he arose with an ejaculation, 
which, while perhaps not altogether unnatural, under 
the circumstances, was wholly unnecessary and most 
decidedly unclerical. With the slightly coercive words 
he administered a heavily coercive cuff to the ears of 
the offending young man, which sent him spinning 



96 Nights in Camp. 

around like a top, and only did not knock him down, 
because of his being caught and held up by his com- 
panions. In the midst of the little storm thus raised, 
old Caesar and the deacon entered the church. When 
they came out after having transacted the business 
that brought them there, they learned from the talk of 
some of the by-standers — the indignant marble-players 
had disappeared — that it was the intention of the 
latter to bring the whole matter before the membership 
of Mount Zion Chapel in the meeting to be held on 
the following day. So Csesar was suddenly put in 
possession of a piece of information, which, to say the 
best of it, was by no means pleasant to him as a 
preacher, and furnished him food for much anxious 
thought and investigation during the balance of the 
day and night. 

"After he reached home, he consulted his Bible long 
and closely ; — but it was a noteworthy circumstance 
that he did not consult his little Bible-teacher, with 
regard to certain passages of Scripture, which he care- 
fully marked by turning down the leaves, and which, 
it should be said here, he had determined to use in his 
defence, and as he fondly hoped, to the confusion of 
his enemies. Perhaps he thought that he understood 
these passages well enough without explanation; or, 
perhaps he thought, an explanation might interfere 
with his using them at all, — that it was better for him 
to use them wrongfully not knowing it, than not to use 
them were it shown him they had no bearing upon his 
case. He did not say, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis 
folly to be wise;" but it is possible he thought some- 
thing like it. At any rate, as before said, whether mis- 
led in such manner or not, he failed to seek informa- 



Nights in Camp. 97 

tion from his Miss Elvie, as was his custom when in- 
tending to make public use of his Bible-studies. 

"Eleven of the clock next morning found Mammy 
Csesar at his post in the pulpit of Mount Zion Chapel. 
It was observed that his face was well shaven even to 
slickness ; that his somewhat threadbare black suit was 
scrupulously clean; that his standing collar was high 
and bright ; and that his white cravat was broad and 
stiff, — in fact, that there was a neatness — a starchiness 
so to speak — about the make-up of the man, and an as- 
sumption of austere dignity, which went far beyond — and 
that is saying a great deal — anything ever witnessed of 
him before in his pulpit. He evidently felt that a good, 
not to say a formidable impression at the beginning 
was half the battle in the coming case. The house 
was filled to overflowing. All the members for miles 
around, — and most of the negroes above babyhood in 
the vicinity were members, — had turned out to witness 
and participate in the strange event of a preacher 
being tried by his congregation for swearing. 

" 'My dear congregashun,' — said Mammy Caesar, after 
the opening hymn had been sung, — *de summon fur 
to-day is pos'poned. Dar is anuther an' a sort uv mis- 
agreeable bizness on han'. Yo' preacher have bin tole 
dat some uv de boy-members uv dis church has 
*nounced dat dey is gwine to persent him befo' you at 
dis hour fur de 'fence uv swarrin'*' A pause. 'What's 
you got to say to dat, Bru'r Peter Downs?'— suddenly 
asked old Caesar, turning and looking severely at that 
young man, who was seated with the other marble- 
players on one of the forward benches. — 'What's you 
got to say to dat ? — for to use some languidge dat I 
once heard frum Mars. Eodman Breck, you's de head 
an' frunt uv dis 'fendin'. I pause fur yo' reply.' 



98 Nights in Camp. 

"The young negro at this curt summons arose 
evidently fully prepared for the struggle, and preferred 
his charge. He did it without any bravado — indeed he 
did it rather quietly and modestly. The words used 
by the preacher, as stated by the boy, if they did not 
amount exactly to swearing, were closely akin to it. 
They were at any rate very ugly ; and that fact, joined 
to the manner of the complainant in giving his testi- 
mony, made upon many of the congregation, especially 
the younger members, an impression not altogether 
favorable to Mammy Caesar. This impression deep- 
ened as the same story was told by the other boys, — 
with the addition of the heavy slap, — all of which was 
confirmed by the statement of one of the leaders of the 
church, deacon Ephraim Jones, who was Mammy 
Caesar's companion on the occasion. It should be 
added that, in reply to questions of old Caesar, there 
appeared to be some doubt on the part of the deacon, as 
to the words, — 'I swear.' The deacon seemed to think 
the expression was — 'I swow.' — It was admitted by all 
that the Lord's name was not used ; and that the offen- 
sive words were directed at Peter Downs alone. 

" Mammy Caesar saw that he would have to make a big 
effort, not especially to free himself from any immedi- 
ate trouble because of the charge, for he had no fear 
as to that, but to prevent subsequent ill effects. All 
doubts, if he had ever entertained any, with regard to 
using his selected passages from the Scriptures, van- 
ished 'like the snow-flake in the river.' He rose slowly 
from his seat, and drawing himself up to his fall height 
of over six feet, and swelling out his ample chest to its 
greatest dimensions, he cast his eyes with gravity, 
even sternness, all over his congregation, — in fact he 



Nights in Camp. 99 

looked, as he uttered his first words, like a king address- 
ing his subjects. Peter Downs and his marble-play- 
ing cmf Teres were observed to cower beneath the 
severity of his countenance when in the course of his 
remarks it was turned fully on them. 

" * I have jist a word or two to say fur de puppos' 
uv wipin out dis charge. In de fo'mos' place, when I 
got up frum dat groun', which my head struck fus' wid 
a bang dat flew de fire out'n boff my eyes, I was dat 
flabberc^egasted,— it's a long word, but you all un- 
nerstan' its meanin,' — I was dat flabberdegasted, dat 
I dunno' what I said. Howsumever you bin tole de 
words 'tributed to me by dese boys an' deacon Jones. 
When you takes dem words an' turn 'em all roun', you 
won't fin' de Lord's name in 'em once — no nary time ; 
an' den dars no one sho' dat I use de words — ' I swar.' 
In fac', deacon Jones radder declines to de noshun uv 
dem words bein' — 'I swow'. Now, my fren's, every one 
uv you knows beyon' de slimmest shadder of a doubt, 
dat 'swowin' widout de Lord's name, aint 'swarrin'. 
So I says to you, an' I says to Peter Downs, an' I's 
sho' you'll 'gree wid me, dat it would bin bettermos' 
fur him to do like his name-sake, de great desciple 
who, when he was sinnin', let the cock do de crowin', 
dan fur him to do de sinnin' an de crowin' boff.' Here 
a deep hum of approbation satisfied the preacher that 
he had made a strong point. 'What I means to 
'lustrate is dis : in de place uv fotchin' up dis charge 
agin yo' preacher fur words dat could hardly be helped 
under de circumstances pernounced befo' you by dese 
witnesses, Peter Downs, should have 'pologized to you 
fur dirtyin' de back uv yo' preacher an' dirtyin' yo* 
church-groun's, by de crime uv marvel-playin'. What 



100 Nights in Camp. 

mo', my fren's, is necessary to be said towards de full 
'lucidashun an' reposement uv dis case?' Old Caesar 
was so proud of the sonorous swell of the words with 
which he had rounded up his statement, that he re- 
peated them with additional animation and emphasis, — 
• What mo' is necessary to be said tode full 'lucidashun 
an' reposement uv dis case.' There w^as a flutter 
throughout the congregation, as old Caesar, with the 
words, 'I's done — got no mo' to say on de subjec',' 
took his seat with calm dignity. It was evident in a 
moment that the trial would end in the triumphant 
acquittal of the preacher, and the utter discoinfitare of 
Peter Downs and his associates. 

" Deacon Ephraim Jones at once took the floor, and 
moved substantially that the pastor of Mount Ziou 
Chapel be exonerated from all blame in the matter 
under consideration, and that the members of the 
church had full confidence in him both as man and 
preacher. The deacon himself put the motion, and it 
was carried overwhelmingly. 

"For several minutes after the motion had been 
acted on there was profound quiet in the church. The 
congregation sat with eyes reverently and expectantly, 
fastened on the preacher, who rigidly erect in his chair, 
returned the look with what Malvolio has termed *an 
austere regard of controL' At length he slowly arose 
and said : 

" 'As all de congregashun rose to dar feet in 'sponse 
to de 'firmative uv de motion, 'cep' de young bru'rs, 
who made de charge, de verdic' by which yo' preacher 
has bin 'zonerated may be 'sidered synonymous — wid- 
out one single an' solitary vote agin it. But, my fr'en's, 
de bizness uv de day is not fully fru yit. I's got a 



Nights in Camp. 101 

*ditement to bring befo' clis meetin'. I's gwine to see 
now what's to be done wid dese bojs who's tried to 
sep'rate de shppperd frum his flock, an de flock frum 
its shepperd. No proof am required to show dat dese 
boys was plajin' marvels, an' plajin' em on de church 
groun'. Dat's bin fully amplified befo' you.' Turn- 
ing to the deacon, he continued : * Bru'r Jones ! — I 
tole you, an' Bru'r Dick Smith, an Sis'r Kiziah Wilkins 
to bring yo' Bibles here dis morniu'. You may be 
sorter slow in readin', but yon can spell your way fru 
de tex. I ax you all to turn to de fifth chapter an de 
eighth verse uv de book of Ecclesiastes, an' I bequests 
Sis'r Keziah, as she can read de mos' clearest, to let us 
know what's put down dar.' Sister Keziah read : 'If 
thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent per- 
verting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel 

not ' 'Pause right dar, Sis'r Keziah,' ejaculated 

Mammy Caesar — ' Pause right dar ! — Marvel not ! — 
dem's de words ! — Murder not ! — it means do no 
murder. Marvel not !— it means play no marvels. 'In 
a province, where de poor is oppressed, an' judgment 
an' justice, perverted, as it's bin done atde South, ever 
since de war, play no marvels ! I 'spec' dat game is 
speshally pernounced ag'inst, 'cause de folks in dem 
days jist knowed dat game by itse'f, an' no mo'. Dey 
didn't unnerstan seven-up, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, 
base-ball, an' sich like games, as has de mainest hole 
on dis ginerashun. I could pint, my fr'en's, to more'n 
one tex in de Bible, dat tells yo in de same way to 
marvel not, but de one jist read by Sis'r Keziah is 
'nuff — it lays over de whole groun' like a quilt over de 
bed.' 

"As soon as Mammy Caesar sat down, Deacon Jones 
was on his feet again. 'I moves,' exclaimed he, 'dat de 



102 Nights in Camp. 

errin' bru'rs — Peter Downs, Billy Trigg, Eben Short 
and Crip Lane — be 'spelled frum dis church.' Old 
Caesar, however, whose face had suddenly taken on 
rather an anxious expression, beckoned to the deacon, 
who went at once to the pulpit. The former whispered 
a few words. — The latter thereupon returned to his 
seat, and modified his motion, so as to provide for the 
expulsion of the boys, if the preacher, under all the 
circumstances, thought it to the interest of the church. 
The truth is, Mammy Caesar, for the last few minutes, 
had been turning over in his mind what his little-Bible 
teacher had said to him, some days before, about the 
Good Samaritan, and the whole current of his thoughts 
and feelings had changed, — all wrath had melted away 
like night-mists before the risen sun ; — and besides, as 
he looked over the congregation he saw that it was in 
sympathy with him, — so that his wounded self-love did 
not require for its cure such a violent remedy, as the 
absolute expulsion of the offending members. He had 
for these reasons suggested to the deacon the modifi- 
cation of his motion. He put it to the meeting, and it 
was adopted with a unanimity similar to that which 
had marked the first. 'It is lef ' to me,' he said, in con- 
clusion, 'to'termine what shall be done wid de culprics 
in dis case. My 'cision is, dat dey may remain in de 
church on probashun' an' when dey's shown de fruits 
an' de meats uv repentance, dey can be took back in full 
fellership agin; — an' I will say to dem now, dat de 
very fus' step fur dem to take in de right d'recshun, 
will be to pay Bru'r Ephraim Jones de twenty-five 
cents each uv 'em owe de church for las' month, an' de 
twenty-five cents fur month befo' las', an' which 
oughter bin paid when due, but wasn't. An' may the 



Nights in Camp. 103 

Lord have mussy on dar souls ! De congregashun will 
now rise to dar feet, an' be dismissed.' 

"EP. THIRD. 

"A little more than five years have passed since at- 
tention was first directed to Mammy Caesar, as he stood 
in the little rustic porch of his cabin at the foot of the 
hill. It is now called to him again, and for the last 
time, as he stands, one bright summer's evening of the 
year, 1875, in the same place. The hall and cabin, and 
the grounds around them, present the same old aspect 
of comfort and cheerfulness. The five years, however, 
have wrought a great change in old Caesar. Standing 
before the door of the cabin, his bent form, snow- 
white hair, and deeply wrinkled face, show that the 
years, though few, have made a very old man of him 
indeed; and, as he moves across the floor, his stooping 
person supported by a long cane, and his tottering 
footsteps, indicate not only age but decrepitude. He 
has just walked to the end of the porch next to the 
hall on the hill, and, with his open hand shading his 
dim eyes, is gazing along the pathway winding between 
the bushes with the same eager expectancy, which was 
to be observed in his case, when first introduced to 
the reader on exactly the same spot. The anxious look 
is followed by a smile that lights up most pleasantly 
his withered features, as he notes two persons slowly 
descending the slope, who, indeed, it should be said, 
are the same two that met his gaze on the former oc- 
casion. Not as little boy and girl do they come now, 
of course, but as young man and young woman ; — the 
one tall, and though slender, yet displaying by his 
erect figure and active step, full chest and well poised 



104 Nights in Camp. 

head, no little physical vigor, while the broadly rounded 
chin, closed lips and massive jaw, joined with the grave 
and steady lij];ht of two wide-open brown eyes beneath 
a slightly jutting brow, indicate no less distinctly con- 
siderable mental and moral power; — the other, small, 
light and airy, as she glides along the pathway, with 
her faultless face brightened by the action of a pure 
mind and heart, suggests, in her person and movement, 
some one of the sweet and well rounded little poems 
of a master-artist — every line a grace and every thought 
an inspiration. They meet old Caesar with as much 
cordiality — on the part of the young lady with as much 
affection indeed — as marked the meeting previously 
recorded, but with a touch of seriousness, even sad- 
ness, of which at the former one there was no trace. 
Mammy Csesar spoke first. 

" *So you's come back agin. Miss Elvie, to de ole 
home. It's bin mighty lonesum' fur de free years you 
stay away at de coUidge. An' Mars. Frank, 'dough he 
now live down in Mobile, hear uv yo' return an' gits 
here mos' as quick as you does. Dars a heap in dat; 
an' ole Caesar unnerstan' it all. But,' turning to the 
young man with a significant look, and speaking with 
an earnestness that amounted to an entreaty, — 'you 
mus' not take her 'way frum here, no matter what hap- 
pens. If you does ole Caesar have to go too, — yes, 
ole Caesar have to go too, Mars. Frank — don't forgit 
dat! Whar she is dar mus' he be also, while life las'.' 

*'"I done miss you all dese years, Miss Elvie — 
more'n I can tell, — miss you in a heap uv ways ; prin- 
cip'ly I's needed yo' light to shine on de Bible fur me. 
Yo' Aunt up dar — she 'splain knotty p'ints fur e 
when I go to her, an' what she say alius done me good ; 



Nights in Camp. IO5 

but she couldn't do fur me like jou. I dun'no', con- 
tinued he musingly, and pulling at one of his ears,—' I 
dun'no, but it seem like dar was light wantin' 
somewhar.' 

" ' But, ah, Mammy Caesar ! '—replied the young lady 
smiling up at him archly, ' it seems that you did not 
always care for the light of which you speak even when 
it was in reach of you. You remember that when you 
had the trouble in your church with the marble-players 
you did not seek my help. In fact', continued she 
shaking her head at him, ' I believe you dodged me, for 
I came to see you as usual the Saturday evening before 
the trial, and you were not to be found. One of the 
little negro girls told me she thought you were in your 
cabin with the door locked.' 

" 'Well,' said old Caesar with a faint smile, *dat whole 
thing was sorter funny, an' I didn'fc think I was sich a 
fool. But', after a pause in which his face saddened, 
'it was mighty sinful in me to 'low ignorance to put 
sich a 'terpretation upon de bressed words uv Scriptur' 
when knollidge was so close by, an' could bin had fur 
de askin'. De bes' part uv de matter,— an' while dat 
is no perfec' consolashun, it make me sorter easier in 
my min,'— was dat no.speshal harm come frum my 
foolishness. But dat was de Lord's doin's— dat was 
de Lord's doin's. I bress an' praise Him for His good- 
ness. An' I's prayed Him time an' agin to forgive me 
fur my sin uv persum'shun, an' I's sho' He's done it.' 
" 'But, Miss Elvie, I's got somethiog more 'portant 
to say dan what 'cerns dis ole darkey d'reckly. You 
an' Mars. Frank here, I's bin tole, is gwiue to git 
married.'- He spoke these words slowly, tremblingly 
and impressively.-'Dat's a mightv solium step. 



106 Nights in Camp. 

Lemme talk wid you boff a little 'bout it. Miss Elvie, 
you's my chile ! — You was made my cliile by yo' 
paren's a-tellin' me in dar las' words to take care uv 
you. An' I done it while you was at home here to 
de bes' uv my 'bility. You never lef dese groun's by 
yo'se'f durin' all dem young years uv yo's, dat ole 
Csesar was not alius in sight of you. Now I hasn't 
long to stay here, — no, de ole nigger's co'se is almos' 
run, — an' I wants to be able to tell yo' pa an' yo' ma, 
when I meets 'em up yonder, dat I's done my whole 
duty by de little one dey 'trusted to me. You know, 
Miss Elvie, an' you too. Mars. Frank, what de Scriptur 
say 'bout marryin'. When it's a right marri'dge, it 
make uv de man an' de woman one pusson. It say,' — 
here he took from his pocket his old, well-rubbed, 
leather-bound Bible, and putting on his spectacles, 
turned to the chapter from which he wished to read. — 
* It say : 'And they twain shall be one flesh ; so then 
they are no more* twain but one flesh.' — Now I's never 
marri'd, 'cause I's never yit seed de woman wid whom 
I could be one flesh. It was jist unpossible fur me to 
fin' her. My darlin' chile !' — continued he after 
another pause, and laying one trembling hand upon 
the young woman's head, and the other on Frank's 
shoulder,— 'does you — does boff uv you — know an' feel 
dat you can become one — dat you can give up bein' two 
pussons, as fur as each uv you is 'cerned, an' one 
towards de udder, an' be de same in all de 'senshalities 
uvlife?' He looked for a moment into the faces of 
the two young people, whose eyes, fixed upon each 
other, expressed a depth of love and tenderness as 
strong as existence itself, and said slowly : ' I's satis- 
fied. — I sees when you is j'ined in wedlock, you will be 



Nights in Camp. . 107 

no mo' twain ; but dat de beauty an' de sweetness uv 
de one, an' de strength an' de honor uv de udder, will 
be combined — ' malgamated — into de single an' perfec' 
marri'dge liv de Bible. I bress de Lord dat my work 
here is now done ; an' I's ready — yes I's more'n willin' — 
to go when de summons comes ! Amen ! ' 

" He had preached the last sermon and prayed the 
last prayer, of any especial interest, to the reader of 
these imperfect sketches. With the closing words, 
tremulously and most feelingly uttered, there fell 
upon the little party a peace that was more than rest- 
ful — it was holy — for it came from Heaven ! The two 
young people soon after thoughtfully retraced their 
steps along the hillside path to the hall ; and as they 
disappeared among the clustering branches and flowers, 
the old negro feebly hobbled into his cabin, and gently, 
noiselessly shut the door." 



PAET lY.— NIGHTS IN CAMP. 

JUDGE CKOFTON DISCOUKSES ABOUT JOHNSON J. HOOPER, 
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN, JEREMIAH CLEMENS, ALEXANDER 
B. MEEK, ETC. 

" Ah, sir !" turning to Lovel, '* Monkbarns wad wile the bird 
aff the tree wi' the tales he tells about the folk lang syne." 

— The Antiquary. 

The excursion was drawing to a close. The last 
night in camp had perhaps been reached. No particu- 
lar programme having been arranged for the occasion, 
several of the party headed by Ernley, crowded around 
Judge Crofton, who was seated after supper, reading 
Meek's poems, by a blazing pine torch near the centre 
of the eating-tent, and insisted upon his giving them 
some of his personal recollections of leading literary 
men of Alabama, with whom he had been thrown in 
intimate association. The Judge was, as usual, in a 
complying mood. 

*' There are not many Alabama books," said Judge 
Crofton, as he lit his pipe, and settled himself back 
comfortably in his chair, — " indeed, when considered, 
in connection with the flood of books, with which this 
country has been overwhelmed during the last dozen 
or so years, there are not many Southern books. But 
few people at the South, — hardly one in Alabama, — 
have, for that time, or any other time, made literature, 
or rather the writing of books, a business. And they 
have not done so, because the people of the South have 



Nights in Camp. 109 

heretofore cared more for eminence in statesmanship 
than for eminence in general literature — more for 
speech-making, than for book-making; — and besides* 
they have lacked large cities holding extensive 
establishments for the publication of books and 
periodicals — great centres, in a word, of literary en- 
couragement and criticism. The few Alabama authors, 
whom I have known, wrote merely for pastime — wrote, 
in fact, when they had nothing else to do. As they, 
however, by their occasional and unpremeditated ven- 
tures into the domain of letters, achieved a reputation 
that the South should not willingly let die, — I am glad, 
my friends, to take advantage of this opportunity to 
talk of them to you. I shall only notice the few — all 
of whom are now dead — that were associated with me, 
at some time or other, on terms as nearly approaching 
intimacy as could well exist between a young man, 
such as I was then, and men of mature age. I will 
begin what I have to say about these writers, with 

"JOHNSON J. HOOPEE. 

" There is scarcely a name in the annals of the state, 
that is mentioned so frequently and so kindly — at least 
among the gray-beards of to-day at the South— as that 
of Johnson J. Hooper, or 'Jonse Hooper,' as he was 
familiarly called by his friends, that is, by everybody 
who knew him. I do not suppose he had an enemy in 
the world. I first met Hooper in Montgomery in 
1857; — I had met 'Simon Suggs' before, or rather his 
portrait, and liking it, was prepared to like the man 
who had painted it. Hooper was then the editor of the 
Montgomery Mail ; and he appeared to me, at the time, 
as being singularly unfitted for the sort of warfare into 



110 Nights in Camp. 

which such a position necessarily plunged its occu- 
pant — he was so frail in body, and so mild and gentle 
in manner, and so quiet and kind in face. But I soon 
found out that in a rough and tumble political fight, he 
always 'held his own,' — could give and take hard 
knocks, although he never violated the proprieties of 
his responsible post. While as a financier he was 
loose and careless of management, as an editor he was 
prudent and cautious and far-seeing. I remember an 
incident, which was somewhat illustrative of the last 
named traits. 

" A night or two after Fort Sumter was fired on by 
order of the Confederate Government, there was a large 
gathering of the people in front of the Montgomery 
Exchange, and several speeches were made. Among 
the speeches was one by General L. P. Walker — a man 
than whom there was none better nor purer in the 
state — containing some big sounding words about the 
war not being allowed to close until the Confederate 
flag should wave in triumph over Faneuil Hall. Walker 
intended the words for clap-trap — only a something to 
warm up the Southern heart. He never dreamed that 
they would go all over the United States, and be used 
to fire the Northern heart. Hooper, however, knew 
that such would be the effect of the words, coming as 
they did, from the mouth of the Confederate Secretary 
of War. He was standing at the time immediately in 
front of and facing me, and I never saw a wilder and 
more startled expression upon the features of mortal 
man than was painted upon his face, as the words rang 
out clear and shrill upon the evening air. I could read 
the expression without the aid of any explanation from 
his lips, which I may say, However, I subsequently got 



Nights in Camp. Ill 

from him in full. Bufc even he never supposed, nor 
could any man in that vast crowd have supposed, that 
after the war was over, and peace had again smiled 
upon the country, an orator at a great national celebra- 
tion would make the words the ground-work of an 
argument to show that the South in the war was seek- 
ing not its liberties alone, but along with them the 
conquest of the North ! 

"I shall not discuss 'Simon Suggs' at present. I 
have never seen the book since I first read it in the 
days of my boyhood, and am consequently unable to 
speak of it as it deserves. I can say, however, that I 
then thought it a treasury of that rich and rare humor 
peculiar to the great Southwest in the ' brave days of 
old,' — a book, in short, abounding in pithy sayings and 
striking situations, which charmed as much by their 
naturalness, as by the fun and frolic with which they 
were attended, — and that my face wore a broad smile 
during its perusal from the opening to the closing 
chapter. I wish some adventurous publisher would 
issue another edition of the book. It is worth a 
* baker's dozen' of most of the so-called works of 
humor that are annually thrown from the American 
press. 

"Hooper was elected to the Secretaryship of the 
Confederate Provisional Congress in 1861, and accom- 
panied the body to Eichmond, when that city became 
the seat of the Confederate Government. He died 
there in 1862, having gradually failed in health from 
the time of his removal. When he died there was not 
one of his old associates at the Confederate Capital, 
nor in this state, who did not feel that a great source 
of his pleasure in this life had been suddenly and for- 



112 Nights in Camp. 

ever withdrawn. This is high tribute, but I am sure, 
without the approving nod of mj old friend, Maltman 
over there, that it is fully and richly deserved." 

"The name of Johnson J. Hooper," said Judge 
Crofton after a pause, "suggests that of a kindred 
spirit, who, about the same time, by a single book, 
secured a prominent place in the literary history of 
the state. Like Hooper he was a humorist — his 
humor, however, was more delicate and subtle than 
that of the author of 'Simon Suggs,' and his general 
character was firmer and more robust. I allude to 

"JOSEPH G. BALDWIN. 

"To speak of Baldwin," continued Judge Crofton, "I 
shall have to violate the rule, laid down at the outset, 
as governing my selection of subjects for remark : — I 
did not know him. He had come into the state from 
Virginia while I was a child, and left it for the Pacific 
coast when I was off at school. But although I did 
not know him, I do know his book — 'Flush Times of 
Alabama and Mississippi' — well and intimately, and 
am glad that I know it. 

"The modest little volume is made up of about two 
dozen sketches with regard to life, manners and char- 
acter during the half-crazy financial era in the history 
of the two states, when shin-planters were the only 
currency of the people. Most of these sketches are 
marked by rich traces of the broadest humor, abun- 
dantly intermixed with large grains of homely wisdom ; 
and much sound philosophy and many practical sug- 
gestions as to the uses and abuses of human life, form 
the body of the more serious and highly finished 
papers. Some parts of the book, too, give evidence of 



Nights in Camp. 113 

a profound knowledge of the complicated and intricate 
workings of tlie human heart, and a grace and power 
of portraying human character, even down to all its 
minutest traits, that is very striking. This is especially 
noticeable in his remarks upon 'Hon. Francis Strother,' 
and those upon 'Sargent S. Prentiss,' especially the 
former. The Strother sketch, indeed, in the respect 
suggested, is emphatically excellent. I knew the sub- 
ject of it well— Hon. Francis S. Lyon — served with 
him in the legislature, and in the last constitutional 
convention of the state — and I have no hesitation in 
saying, that so delicate and exact is Baldwin's touch 
in the work of presenting the inner man of this dis- 
tinguished Alabamian, I should have known at once 
who sat for the picture, even had no part of his name 
been given, and had the graphic description of his 
person been omitted. 

"There are a few old lawyers still left in West Ala- 
bama, who practiced at the bar with Joseph G. Baldwin 
and who enjoyed with him intimate social relations. 
To hear them talk of the man is a treat — a repast 'fit 
for the gods.' Notably among these is Col. M. L. 
Stansel, of Pickens. 

"I cannot mention the name of this gentleman here, 
whom I have known well since 1857, and with whom I 
have served so frequently in public assemblages, with- 
out stopping to say a word or two about him. Col. 
Stansel lives at Carrollton, in Pickens county, and has 
lived there or in the vicinity for about a half century — 
having been only eight years of age when his 
father removed to the county from Georgia. He is not 
what is called a brilliant man, he is something better — 
a sound man. His mind is clear, logical and vigorous, 



114 Nights in Camp. 

and his heart is alive to every generous and unselfish 
impulse. Pickens county knows the value of the man 
and his services, and has shown her appreciation of 
both by thrusting upon him office after office, frequently 
in the face of his earnest protest. And there is no 
weakening in the favor of tliafc county for Col. Stansel 
— no abatement in the vigor and number of her calls 
upon him for service — because of his age. Under- 
standing that experience as well as worth is desired in 
a public servant, and that old age, unaccompanied by 
mental or physical decay — which is the case with CoL 
Stansel — is rather an advantage than otherwise in such 
servants, that county has him in office now, and will no 
doubt keep him in office, as long as he will permit it. 

"But I have said it is extremely pleasant to hear 
Col. Stansel and the few remaining friends of 'Joe 
Baldwin' in West Alabama talk of him and his acts 
while a resident of Sumter county — of the spicy and 
brilliant manner in which he managed his cases in 
court — of his innocent and genial humor — of his in- 
exhaustible fund of anecdote, the point of much of 
which was directed at himself — of his modesty and 
generosity — of his love of truth and fair dealing. I 
have never heard one of these old gentlemen speak of 
Baldwin, that I have not felt that his removal from 
Alabama was a calamity to the state. The life of such 
a man was a sort of blessing to every one with whom 
he came in contact. Note how Thomas J. Wetmore, of 
Dallas, who was for some time his law partner, puts it. 
Speaking of Baldwin, he said : 'Oh, for an hour's talk 
with some man like him, wearing his humanity as he 
used to wear it, with his hat about to turn a back sum- 
mersault from his head, with his forehead growing 



Nights in Camp. 115 

broader, and his eyes sparkling brighter, as he ad- 
vanced in anecdote, till he was shut out from vision by 
the tears his mirth created, and we were compelled to 
feel that there was at least one great and good man in 
the world who could be funny.' 

"Baldwin's rise to eminence at the bar of San Fran- 
cisco was rapid and brilliant. He was elected to the 
Supreme bench of California by a vote of the whole 
people of the state, before he had been there many 
years ; and in that high office he won the respect and 
esteem of all who were acquainted with the manner in 
which he discharged its responsible duties. He, how- 
ever, preferred practicing at the bar to sitting on the 
bench, and, consequently, after a year or two, gave up 
the position to which he had been elevated. He died 
soon after the close of the late war between the states, 
in the prime of life and the full meridian of his useful- 
ness — being at the time only about fifty-five years of 
age. He was well known throughout California, and 
the people of the state almost as a unit mourned his 
loss to the country and humanity." 

" Beautiful Huntsville," continued Judge Crofton 
after relighting his pipe, " with its beautiful surround- 
ings, has given to the world several literary celebrities 
— at least they were celebrities for awhile ; and the 
productions, that made them so, foreshadowed a bril- 
liant and lasting fame to each. The most noted among 
these were Hon. Jeremiah Clemens, and 

"MISS JULIA PLEASANTS AND T. BIBB BRADLEY." 

" I shall, in speaking of Miss Pleasants, along with 
Bradley, violate my rule again. While I knew Bradley 
well, I did not know Miss Pleasants except by sight. 



116 Nights in Camp. 

I returned to Huntsville, after a five years' absence, 
about the time she married Mr. Creswell, of Louisiana, 
and removed to that state. She was tall and slender, 
with a placid, classic face, and quiet, unassuming man- 
ners. She and Bradley were cousins, and they to- 
gether, in the fifties, published a volume of verse under 
the title of ' Apheila and other poems.' The book con- 
tained some pieces of considerable merit. ' The Evil 
Days,' written by Miss Pleasants, was one of these. 
Four lines of another poem by her have remained with 
me ever since my first reading of the volume — a sort 
of haunting memory, as the opening stanza of ' Cum- 
nor Hair was said to have been for Sir Walter Scott : 

' The fairy minstrel flowers 

Render through the leafy gloom, 

Low responses to the birds 
In a chorus of perfume.' 

* A^pheila,' the leading poem of the volume, written 
by Bradley, is a strong production — full of grim 
thoughts and gloomy images, that are calculated to 
affect one like a nightmare. It was unfortunate for its 
popularity, that, resembling ' The Eaven' in the line 
of thought, it should have been written in the same 
measure. Comparison between it and that remarkable 
production was the inevitable result — a disastrous 
comparison for * Apheila.' Justice has consequently 
never been done to Bradley's poem either by critics or 
the general reader. Mrs. Creswell, from her adopted 
home amid magnolias and surrounded by semi-tropical 
singing birds, has now and then given to the world 
snatches of song as bright and fragrant as the blooms 
of the one, and as sweet and airy as the notes of the 
other. It is to be regretted that the strains from her 



Nights in Camp. 117 

strictly Southern lyre are so seldom heard and are of 
such brief continuance. Bradley was a child of genius, 
with many promising probabilities— all of which were 
nipped in the bud. He died young— a man of disap- 
pointments. He unfortunately had expensive habits, 
which, linked with that most unmeet of all yoke- 
fellows for such habits, poverty, deadened aspiration 
and paralyzed effort." 

" I have hurried through with what I had to say 
about Mrs. Creswell and Bradley, in order to devote 
more time to the other member of the Huntsville lit- 
erary triad mentioned above — 

" HON. JEREMIAH CLEMENS. 

" Jere. Clemens, as he was accustomed to write his 
own name, was one of the most remarkable men that 
the South ever produced. He was lawyer, soldier, pol- 
itician, and author. He never became great as a lawyer, 
for he allowed soldiering and politics to interfere too 
much with the exacting demands of the legal pro- 
fession. As a soldier he never had an opportunity of 
particularly distinguishing himself, but all his acts, 
during his military career, gave abundant evidence of 
high military capacity. He was never successful as a 
politiciaQ, although he, at one time, was elected to the 
United States Senate— because he leaned strongly 
toward Federalism — and yet, strange to say, he had no 
love for the " head and fron<-" of Federalism in this 
country, Alexander Hamilton. His speeches, however, 
while he was in the United States Senate, were models 
of oratorical skill of the persuasive order. Smooth 
and gentle in their limpid flow, and as ornate and fin- 



118 Nights in Camp. 

ished as some of the celebrated essays of the Edin- 
burgh Review. 

"Before taking him up as a writer I desire to make 
some slight and hurried references to him as a man. 
I cannot introduce what I desire to say on this subject 
better than by the statement, that, Colonel Clemens 
never truly sympathized with the South in her des- 
perate struggles against the aggressions of the North 
upon her interests — aggressions which President 
Pierce, himself a New Eagland man, in his celebrated 
Kansas-Nebraska message, and they were just as 
heavy and continuous after that stormy executive term 
as before, — pronounced to be such, that, if they had 
occurred between foreign powers, would have been 
just cause for war. During the Federal occupancy of 
Huntsville, he gave full expression to the intensity of 
his unionistic sentiments by deserting the South, and 
publishing a pamphlet within the enemy's lines, reflect- 
ing severely upon her people. But I will not dwell 
upon this dark spot in his history. He is dead ; and 
the South is not disposed to listen to harsh condemna- 
tion of that failing with the many other mistakes of 
this wayward child of genius ; on the contrary, it is 
willing to leave them all to that Sapreme Judgment, 
which, based upon those springs of action unknown to 
man, is unerring in its wisdom and justice. 

'' Colonal Clemens was an even tempered and 
genial man ; and although fully conscious of his won- 
derful powers, was perfectly simple and unpretending 
in his manners. He was indeed one of the most ap- 
proachable of all the brilliant men I ever met. And 
his friends — generally from the great mass of the 
people — were devoted to him ; this was conspicuously 



Nights in Camp. 119 

true of the young among them. He was so free and 
easy with them, entered so heartily into their sports 
and pleasures, was so ready always to do them a kind- 
ness, even in those little matters so irksome and worry- 
ing generally to men of his standing, that when he was 
on the street, he was frequently the centre of a crowd 
of youthful supporters ; followers, admirers and imita- 
tors. I will give an instance illustrative of what I 
have just said, and by the way, it will include one of 
Clemens' nearest approaches to humor. 

" A number of the boys of Huntsville decided once to 
have a sort of ' speaking-bee.' Each one was to select his 
own subject, and discuss it to the best of his ability. 
A church was to be secured for the exercises, and it 
was supposed that the people generally would turn out 
to enjoy the eloquence with which they were sure to 
be regaled. One of the boys— I will call him Joe- 
wishing to create a sensation by his speech, and dis- 
trusting his ability to fix up one that would have such 
effect, got a smart young man of his acquaintance to 
prepare the speech for him. Joe liked the speech 
very much when it was read to him by his smart 
friend, but concluded that it would be prudent to sub- 
mit it to Colonel Clemens for revision and correction. 
He did so. Colonel Clemens seated himself in the 
shade of an awning on the street, and, pencil in hand 
to make the necessary corrections, carefully read the 
speech from beginning to end. When he had finished, 
he gravely folded up the paper, and handed it back 
with the quiet remark, 'Joe, I can't correct that speech. 
When I wrote it, I did my level best.' 

" Colonel Clemens had a wonderful memory. It was 
this memory that not only prompted, but caused him, 



120 Nights in Camp. 

to write out almost all the speeches lie ever made. I 
have heard it often said, in fact I believe I have heard 
him say so himself, that he could write a speech and 
never look over it after it was written, and yet he could 
make the speech on a subsequent day exactly as it was 
prepared, without the change of a single word. 

"Clemens, like Richardson of Sir Charles-Gradison- 
fame, was an old man before he began to write books. 
Within a few years he wrote three volumes — the inter- 
vals indeed between their publications were brief — and 
then he stopped. Although he lived several years 
after issuing the last of the three, he never wrote 
another, at least none other was ever given to the press. 
These novels, 'Bernard Lile,' 'Mustang Gray' and 
' The Rivals,' were not of an elevating tendency. The 
heroes of the two first were desperate and bloody 
minded men, but not, I think — for it has been nearly 
a half-century since I read them — without some heroic 
traits of character. The last — in its main incidents 
being a history of the rivalry between Aaron Burr and 
Alexander Hamilton — was an attempt to make a sort 
of angel of the former and a demon of the latter 
Colonel Clemens, in his leanings towards Burr, was 
perhaps as far from the line of exact fairness, on the 
one side, as some writers, in their leanings towards 
Hamilton, were on the other. Impartial history is 
now pretty well agreed that Burr was about as much 
sinned against as sinning, that both he and Hamilton 
were men of rare ability and great ambition, and that, 
while neither was bad, as opposing narratives have 
sought to make them appear. Burr was perhaps the 
better man of the two. In him the heart dominated 



Nights in Camp. 121 

the intellect— in Hamilton the intellect dominated the 
heart. 

" No evidence of humor and but little of a dramatic 
faculty is to be discovered in these novels. Their 
chief charm is the style, which is as luminous as a 
sunbeam, and as gentle and graceful in its flow as a 
meadow stream, and as musical as the song of its 
waters among the pebbles." 

"But of all Alabama writers whom I have ever 
known, the one that suited me best, was the author of 
this book," slowly and emphatically remarked Judge 
Crofton, showing the volume of Meek's poems, which 
he was reading when the party called on him for a 
talk, and which he had continued to hold in his hand. 
It was in 1859 that I first met 

ALEXANDEK B. MEEK. 

At that time he was a member of the Legislature 
from Mobile, and I, from one of the northern counties 
of the state. He was elected Speaker of the House at 
this session; and a better, at least a kinder and more 
considerate presiding officer no body of men ever had, 
nor one more anxious to do justice by all, while ex- 
tending to the younger members every parliamentary 
indulgence in his power. I got to know him well, and 
loved him, for he was a very lovable man, and besides, 
I received many legislative favors and much legislative 
encouragement from him before the close of this, and 
a subsequent session called by Gov. A. B. Moore just 
before the state seceded from the Union. 

"In all my association with Judge Meek, I never saw 
him evince the least worry and annoyance even when 
9 



122 Nights in Camp. 

surrounded by impatient wranglers, and when the most 
perplexing and complicated questions were being pre- 
sented to him for settlement. He was a good, but not 
a remarkable talker — in fact he was not fond of talking. 
What he said was always well said and to the point ; 
but the chief charm of his conversation lay in the 
smile that so frequently lighted up his face, and the 
kindly feeling which suggested and directed his words. 
It would be hard for me to believe that his face ever 
wore a harsh expression or that a harsh sentence ever 
fell from his lips. 

" My last service with Judge Meek in a public way 
was on the committee which was sent from Montgom- 
ery in 1861 to meet the President of the Confederate 
States at West Point, and welcome him to Alabama 
soil. I pause here to say a few words about that 
committee. Along with Meek and myself were the 
brilliant Bullock, who was the chairman, the broad- 
minded Morgan and Watts, the chivalrous Clanton, 
the enterprising Charles T. Pollard, the genial J. C. B. 
Mitchell, and others whose names I can not now recall. 
Bullock met the President with a speech which was a 
masterpiece ; of course, Mr. Davis' reply was just what 
it ought to have been. Meek made a speech at 
Opelika, where the train, in returning, was stopped by 
an enthusiastic crowd. That was the last speech I 
ever heard from him. My business soon took me 
West, and we never met again. He died soon after 
the war at Columbus, Miss., to which place he had 
removed but a short time before. 

" The most ambitious poetic effort of Meek was * Red 
Eagle,' a romantic rhyming story in three cantos, after 
the manner of Sir Walter Scott, and not unworthy of a 
place by the side of the ' Bridal of Triermain' and his 



Nights in Camp. 123 

other shorter narrative poems. The interest of this 
poem centres in Weatherford, or ' Red Eagle,' an Indian 
remarkable for his physical graces, courage and elo- 
quence. He was the chief leader of the Muscogees or 
Creeks in the war of 1813, which opened with the 
bloody massacre at and around Fort Mims, near 
Mobile, and closed with the overthrow of the Creek 
nation at the battle of the Horseshoe. In this work 
Meek started out with the octo-syllabic measure, so 
well adapted to the recital of heroic adventure, but 
unfortunately dropped it, now and then, for a measure 
slower and heavier. In spite of this defect, it may, 
however, be said that ' Bed Eagle ' is, beyond all ques- 
tion, the finest production of the kind which the Gulf 
States have yet given to the world, and will, when the 
South shall turn her attention to the literature in 
which her peculiar history and characteristics are set 
forth, not only be highly regarded, but lastingly as 
well as affectionately cherished. The descriptive pas- 
sages are especially fine. The butchery at the fort is 
so managed that much which is repulsive is passed 
over, while full justice is done to all that is calculated 
to excite indignation and horror. The picture of Ala- 
bama woods in mid-summer is so life-like and graphic 
as to cause, I am sure, in the reading, the denizens of 
the cities at that season to long for a day to rest in 
their cool and shady recesses, or to stray along their 
sylvan avenues, or to lose themselves in the intricacies 
of their tangled and vine-embowered thickets. "Well 
says Meek : 

*No lovelier land the Prophet viewed. 
When on the saored mount he stood, 
And saw below, transcendant shine, 
The streams and groves of.Palestine.' 



124 Nights in Camp. 

" The song of tlie heroine, who had enough of white 
and Indian blood in her veins to bring about that 
happy union of the dark and bright in the female face 
which Byron so loved to paint — a true child of the 
forest and the south — is probably the best thing in 
the poem, and is certainly one of the most delightful 
lyrics that this country has yet produced. I will 
quote it : 

'The blue bird is whistling in Hillibee grove, — 

Terra-re ! Terra-re ! 
His mate is repeating the tale of his love, — 
Terra-re ! 

But never that song, 

As its notes float along. 
So sw^eet and so soft in its raptures can be 
As thy low whispered words, young chieftain, to me. 

'Deep down in the dell is a clear crystal stream, 

Terra-re ! Terra-re ! 
Where scattered like stars, the white pebbles gleam. 
Terra-re ! 

But deep in my breast 

Sweet thoughts are at rest, 
No eye but my own in their beauty shall see ; 
They are dreams, happy dreams, young chieftain of thee. 

'The honey-bud blooms when the springtime is green, 
Terra-re I Terra-re ! 

And the fawn with the roe on the hill-top is seen, 
Terra-re ! 
But 'tis spring all the year 
When my loved one is near. 

And his smiles are the bright beaming blossoms to me, . 

Oh! to rove o'er the hill top, young chieftain, with thee.' 

" But Meek's fame as a poet rests chiefly upon his 
short poems — 'Land of the South,' 'Homes of Ala- 
bama,' 'Mocking Bird,' 'Charge at Balaklava,' etc. 



Nights in Camp. 1^5 

Many of his shorter poems are lyrics, and were set to 
music. When I first went to Montgomery, in 1857, 
before I had ever met him, one of his :iongs was all the 
rage with the young folks there, and every piano, it 
seemed, was constantly ringing with it. It was called 
'The Bose of Alabama.' I can recall but a single 
stanza : 

'I loved in boyhood's sunny time, 
When life was like a minstrel's rhyme, 
And cloudless as my native clime, 
The Rose of Alabama.' 

" With regard to the 'Charge at Balaklava,' I will 
merely state that I read it as a boy in an English 
paper over the signature of Alexander Smith, the 
author of the 'Life Drama.' I, at the time, fully agreed 
with the editor of the paper in his comments on the 
poem, when he said that the 'Charge of the Light 
Brigade,' by Tennyson, was a failure, and that English- 
men would thank Mr. Smith for a poem that did full 
justice to the subject. My opinion, I should say, of 
Tennyson's poem has changed since that day. Al- 
though I still think that the lines, as they 'thunder' 
along, like the horsemen in the charge, now and then 
* blunder' like the order which set them a-going, I do 
not now regard them as a failure by any means, but a 
most decided success. Meek's poem is a splendid 
one — must, of necessity, be a splendid one — or it would 
most certainly have been consigned to oblivion by the 
comparison thus provoked between it and the ringing 
ode of the poet laureate. 

"Oliver Wendell Holmes states somewhere substan- 
stantially, that it was the use of a certain little personal 
pronoun in the fourth line of 'America,' by Smith, that 



126 Nights in Camp. 

made the song a success — had that line read, * Land 
where my fathers died,' instead of ' Land where our 
fathers died,' the poem would have been admired for 
its other merits, but, as it would, in that case, have 
failed to make a common patriotic brotherhood of the 
American people, it could not have fully reached the 
great American heart. It may, in like manner, be said, 
that the change of a little epithet in Meek's *Land of 
the South' would have seriously marred its beauty 
and'lessened its popularity. The epithet 'imperial' 
is singularly apt and felicitous — it accords so com- 
pletely with the idea of the people of the South as to 
the character of their native country — ' Land of the 
South — imperial -land' — that the line may well be 
pronounced perfect in thought and music, and gives a 
charm to the whole poem. ' The Homes of Alabama' 
is another of Meek's songs that appeals irresistibly to 
Southern sympathies. It portrays Alabama homes, as 
they were before the war. Just listen to the opening 
stanza : 

'The homes of Alabama, 

How beautiful they rise, 
Throughout her queenly forest realm, 
* Beneath her smiling skies ! 
The richest odors fill the breeze, 

Her valleys teem with wealth, 
And the homes of Alabama 

Are the rosy homes of health . ' 

"With our knowledge of such homes, past and pres- 
ent, we can easily read between Meek's lines, that the 
homes to which he refers were full of everything cal- 
culated to make life a blessing to family, to neighbor- 
hood, and State, and were presided over by a grand 
old race of men and matrons — all of whom are now 



Nights in Camp. 127 

gone — yes, gone forever ! — and with them the joys of 
which they were at once the guides and the inspira- 
tion. The two last named songs of Meek will live as 
long as elevated and chivalrous feeling shall find an 
abiding place in the Southern heart. 

" Meek's lines to the ' Mocking Bird ' have been very 
highly and justly commended. The poem, indeed, is 
beautifully wrought throughout, and is as full of 
melody as the little songster to which it is addressed; 
but there is one to the same bird, written by a man all 
of whose thoughts and feelings, like those of Meek, 
were intensely Southern, although he was born in New 
England, which I think as good. Equal to Meek's, it 
is, of course, better than Rodman Drake's — better 
than any other poem addressed to that bird; and their 
name is legion. The measure, it is true, in movement 
is rather too stately for the subject — rather too much 
like the music to which our great-great-grandmothers 
used to dance, dressed out in laced stomachers, ex- 
panded farthingales and high-heeled pantoufles, but 
the rhythmical flow of the lines throughout is delight- 
ful. The writer, I should say, not only resembled 
Meek in temperament, but equally so in other respects 
— had the same commanding" person — nearly six feet 
and a half in height, and over two hundred pounds in 
weight — the same genial and pleasing countenance — 
the same dignified and courtly manners — and the same 
love to, and attraction for, his friends. For these 
reasons, I shall close by giving a stanza from the 
'Address to the Mocking Bird,' by Gen. Albert Pike : 

*Ha ! What a burst was that ! the aeolian strain 

Goes floating through the tangled passages 
Of the lone woods — and now it comes again — 



128 Nights in Camp. 

A multitudinous melody — like a rain 
Of glossy music under echoing trees, 

Over a ringing lake ; it wraps the soul 
With a bright harmony of happiness — 

Even as a gem is w^rapped, when round it roll 
The waves of brilliant flame — till we become, 

Even with the excess of our pleasure dumb, 
And pant like some swift runner clinging to the goal.' 

Judge Crofton closed his book, knocked^the ashes out 
of his pipe, and arose from his seat. Maltman gave 
vent to a loud snore in endorsement of — the blessed- 
ness of sleep. Charley Wenker, however, was wide 
awake. He said: "Judge, I like your talk — I like 
the beginning, middle, and ending — especially the 
ending." 



PAET V— DAY IN CAMP. 

Chabley Wenker's Adventure— Southern Storm. 

What's the matter ? Have we devils here ? * * * 
Mercy ! mercy ! This is a devil and no monster. 

— Shakspeare. 

Oh night, 
And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong! 

— Byron. 

The last day at the Inlet !— And it opened beautifully. 
Indeed it bade fair to be especially fine for bathing 
and fishing, in which sports all the party were engaged 
when their movements next fell under the observation 
of the faithful writer of this delectable chronicle. 
There had been a heavy shower during the previous 
night; and the foliage was yet wet and dripping. The 
atmosphere was cool and bracing,— the more so, as the 
sky was completely overcast by a rippled mass of 
hard-looking, white clouds, which were moving slowly 
—almost imperceptibly. Their motion, however, was 
not so easy, or uniform, as to prevent narrow and 
irregular rifts from being occasionally made, through 
which appeared patches of the heavens beautifully 
blue, and sparkling gleams of sunshine, all the more 
delightful, because of the unexpected suddenness of 
their coming, the shortness of their stay, and the flash- 
ing brilliancy of their track across the placid surface 
of the waters. 



130 Day in Camp. 

CHARLEY WENKER's ADVENTURE. 

Crumlyn, Briarsley, McTarney, Charley Wenker, 
and two or three others were bathing near the mouth 
of the inlet. At the point selected by them for the 
purpose, a wide sand-bar extended some distance from 
the eastern shore, dividing, on that side, the waters of 
the inlet from those of the Gulf, especially at ebb-tide. 
In the larger boat Judge Crofton and Wilmer Prince 
were fishing in the inlet, a few hundred yards above 
the bathing party. They were assisted by three of the 
negroes. Having devoted themselves to the nets, they 
had soon covered the bottom of their boat with fine 
fish. The other boat was occupied by Ernley and 
Haverwood, with Lankey and his brother Ned at the 
oars. These, — or rather the two whites, — as the boat, 
moving along the western side of the little estuary, 
now and then paused where the bank shelved, and 
where the deep pools, made by sharp indentations in 
the shore-line, rested quiet and cool under the drooping 
branches of wide-armed trees, — were fishing with rods 
and lines. They had caught several large trout. 

"What are you going to do now, Haverwood?" 
asked Ernley, somewhat querulously, as the other 
having dropped his pole, and rummaged awhile in the 
chest of the boat, produced a hatchet and nails. 

"I am going to fasten down this seat," was the reply. 
"It is loose, and once or twice has come very near 
emptying me into the bottom of the boat." 

"Why don't you sit still then?" — Seeing, however, 
that Haverwood persisted in the design of nailing down 
the unruly seat, Ernley continued somewhat sardoni- 
cally : "Make haste and be done with your knocking. 
As a fishing companion you are as bad as Wenker — 



Day in Camp. 131 

make as much noise as he does, and pay as little atten- 
tion to the business in hand. You have caused me to 
lose the king of all fish hereabouts, I am sure. His 
bite was absolutely royal." 

Haverwood did his nailing, threw the hatchet into 
the forward part of the boat, and then resumed his 
rod, with a light laugh, saying calmly : "Ernley you 
certainly love the sound of your own voice. I can ac- 
count for much of your talk in no other way." 

"Do I? — and can't you? "answered Ernley meekly. 
"Ha! Look at that!" exclaimed he, as after a short and 
sharp struggle, he threw into the boat a four pound 
pompano, the most delicately flavored and highly 
prized of all Gulf fish. Holding it up, he continued 
elatedly: "Now, isn't that a daisy? or rather isn't it a 
japonica? You perceive my talk was not so unneces- 
sary and purposeless after all." 

"Yes, yes, — I acknowledge my error — my rank in- 
justice," hastily observed Haverwood. "But," turning 
and looking toward the Gulf, "yonder comes some of 
the bathers. Do you see those two heads bobbing 
about in the water just below the other boat? They 
have swam a considerable distance, and must be tired, 
I should think." 

"Well, I hope they are wearied enough to stop at 
the other boat," responded Ernley. "They are not 
wanted here." After a pause, — "One of them has done 
so; the other, however, passes by, and comes this 
way. Who is the wretch, Haverwood? Your eyes are 
better than mine." 

"I can't tell with certainty; but I think Charley is 
the man." 

"Neptune forbid! I take back what I said to you in 



132 Day in Camp. 

my impatience just now. As a fellow fisherman you 
are certainly bad — execrable I may say ; yet you are a 
great improvement on Charley. In my deliberate 
opinion he is the worst on earth. If that is he, we had 
just as well pull up, and go back to camp." 

The swimmer drew near; and throwing back his wet 
locks by a vigorous shake of the head, the bright, 
laughing face of Charley appeared sure enough. He 
reached the boat, and drew himself up by his hands, 
resting his chin between them on its edge, so as to inspect 
the fish lying in the bottom. He appeared surprised 
when he saw the pompano. If he was surprised, there 
was no indication of such feeling in his words. Tumb- 
ling into the boat, and gathering himself up, he said : 
"Do you call this fishing? I am addressing myself to 
you, Ernley! — to you. Haver wood!" — neither of whom 
had spoken to him or looked at him. "I say, do you 
call this fishing? Only about a dozen fish ! — not large 
either, — and one poor pompano! And you have been 
at it for hours! If I couldn't have done better by my- 
self in half the time, I would forswear angling. As 
fishermen you are failures. Take up your rods, — go 
home, — I discharge you." 

Ernley and Haverwood neither spoke nor moved. 
Their eyes, and with them every thought and feeling, 
seemed concentrated and fixed on the little circle of 
water in which floated their lines. 

"Did you hear me?" 

Still no answer — no motion on the part of the fish- 
ermen! The black faces of Lankey and his companion 
took on broad grins; — continuing rapidly to widen, 
these toothsome smiles broke, after a moment or two, 
into loud guffaws. 



Day in Camp. 



133 



" So ho '" said Charley—" you want to get rid of me, 
I see I don't wonder at it. Such work as you are 
doing will not bear the scrutiny of a master. All 
rieht' I'll leave you. Here comes a log just in time 
to bear me away. Goodbye!" While speaking the 
last words, he sprang upon the trunk o a decaying 
tree, armed with several huge, lance-like branches to 
one of which he clung, and floated with the rapidly 
receding tide down the inlet. ^ 

Haverwood and Ernley fished for some time longer, 
diligently, and in silence. They captured a few more 
choice fish, but to Ernley's great disgust, not another 
pompano The former arose from his seat, and said : 
" Let's go to the camp, Ernley ! I see the other boat 
is on its way, and close to the landing-place." Here 
Haverwood^stooped, and gazing intently over the water 
toward the open sea, exclaimed hurriedly: "Charley 
and his log must have passed considerably to the right 
of the bathing party. He is drifting out into the Gulf, 
and is a mere speck in the distance." ,., , 

'' What !" exclaimed Ernley, springing to his leet- 
"Charley is guilty of a great many strange and unwise 
freaks • but that is an action rather too singular and 
foolish even for him. Something must be wrong. My 
God 1 what can it be ?-The daring, headstrong, ungov- 
ernable child! Take to your oars, boys," he shouted 
excitedly to Lankey and Ned,-" Take to your oars, 
and lay the boat alongside of him in a minute,-m 
a minute!" he repeated with clenched hands and 

blanched face. . , 

But it was evident that many-many minutes would 
be required to make the run. And to Charley in the 
meantime — what ? 



134 Bay in Camp. 

The trim little boat, under the management of the 
two trained and powerful Africans, swung around from 
the bank, like a thing of life, and heading down the 
inlet, shot, almost with the speed of a ball from a rifle, 
over the smooth surface of the water. It flew past the 
other boat, which had reached the landing, — Crofton 
and Prince standing motionless, evidently startled, and 
watching the race with interest and surprise. It dashed 
by the long reach of sand, upon which the bathers 
were crowded together, who no doubt having seen 
Charley, as he passed in the distance, had some idea 
of the meaning of the desperate chase, although they 
may not have altogether appreciated the necessity for 
it, — Wenker even then not being so far from the shore, 
as to make an attempt to reach it, by swimming, a haz- 
ardous feat for one so expert in that art, as he was 
known to be. And now the boat is rushing with undi- 
minished swiftness over the waters of the Gulf. On 
board not a word up to this time had been spoken. 
Ernley had placed himself in the prow, and had uncon- 
sciously taken up the hatchet, which Haver wood had 
thrown there, and, tightly grasping it, knelt, with body 
bent and eyes fixed upon Charley. Haverwood was 
close to him. They were near enough now to see 
Wenker distinctly. He was in a crouching position on 
the log ; and more than once, by the violent movements 
of his body and arms, he seemed to be engaged in a 
fierce struggle with some unseen foe. 

"Pull, boys! Pull for your lives ! Something be- 
side the tide has been moving that log. Pull, for God's 
sake, pull !" shouted Ernley, his eyes wet, and his lips 
trembling. 

The boat fairly leaped forward at every quick stroke 



Day in Camp. 135 

of tlie oars, winch, at the same time in the grasp of 
the stalwart negroes, sprung and quivered like reeds. 
Closer and closer it came to the struggling and writh- 
ing Charley,— who had looked up once, and hailed it, — 
faintly, and yet with a touch of the ringing music of 
the old rollicking voice. 

" See," said Haverwood, " those dark bands about his 
legs and body." 

" Yes," answered Ernley, catching his breath, and 
speaking scarcely above a whisper, "he is in the 
clutches of a devil-fish." 

With a well directed blow of the hatchet, as the boat 
touched the log, one of the tentacles of the monster 
was severed, the slimy leathery end of which was 
caught by Lankey, and tossed into the boat. The 
hatchet was left buried in the wood of the limb, around 
which and the leg of Charley the antenna was en- 
twined. As the octopus let go his hold, and dropped 
to the bottom of the Gulf, the log whirled sharply 
around, nearly upsetting the boat, into which, at the 
same moment, Haverwood and Ernley drew the well- 
nigh exhausted Charley. 

After a long pause, as the boat was rowed to the 
shore,— the minds and hearts of the little party being 
full to overflowing with shudders and thankfulness,— 
Ernley, with an emotion, which lightness of tone and 
words were powerless to hide, for tears were in his 
eyes and on his cheeks, said: "Charley, old fellow, 
don't do that any more ! Hardheadedness is your dis- 
tinguishing characteristic. It has thrown you into the 
grasp of one devil,— you were barely saved. Get rid 
of it ; or it will eventually throw you into the grasp of 
the other, from which there is no salvation. Take 



136 Day in Camp. 

these words to your heart, my boy, — take them to your 
heart!" Growing somewhat calmer, Ernley after 
awhile picked up the fragment of the tentacle secured 
by Lankey, and remarked : " I have seen several large 
devil-fish, — one that measured full twenty feet from tip 
to tip of its fin-like wings, or wing-like fins, but none 
of its antennae were as thick, and consequently as long, 
as the one from which this was cut. Your devil must 
have been a monster, indeed, Charley !" 

A SOUTHERN STORM. 

The afternoon of the day that witnessed Charley's 
dangerous adventure, was widely different from the 
cool and bracing morning. It set in hot and sultry. 
And the heat and sultriness increased as the day wore 
on. The atmosphere was thick and hazy, as well as 
stagnant and burning ; and the sun, when it could be 
seen, looked like a vast globular mass of blood, in a sky 
that presented a strange and ominous appearance. 
None of the usual pastimes, or pleasure-seeking labors, 
were engaged in by any of tlie party in the camp. 
Every one, as lightly robed as decency would allow, 
was either lying upon the grass in the deepest shade 
of the woods close by, or was uneasily moving about 
in the apparently fruitless effort to find a comfortable 
spot. Even towards the end of the afternoon, there 
was no change for the better; on the contrary, in the 
darkness, which gradually settled down upon the earth, 
like a sort of gray twiliglit, the more weird and un- 
natural because the red sun could still be faintly seen 
above the horizon, the heat and sultriness had become 
so great to every one whether in the woods or wander- 
ing about the tents, as to be well-nigh intollerable. 



Day in Camp. 137 

The minutes in their sluggish passage, seemed 
lengthened into hours. Still not a whisper of a com- 
ing breeze ! — still not a quivering leaf on the surround- 
ing trees, nor a ripple upon the sombre face of the 
Gulf! — still thick, heavy and fiery remained the move- 
less air ! The birds had sought their secret coverts ; 
the cattle had gone into the closest recesses of the 
glen; and the insects were housed and hushed. Neither 
above nor below was there a sound, as the dim sun 
finally sank into a crimson-dyed, murderous-looking 
cloudbank resting upon the western waters. The lips 
of all the party, — even those of the almost irrepressible 
Charley, — were closed and silent, as they, having come 
together on the high ground near the tents, gazed 
anxiously at that setting. 

"Boys!" — The painful spell was broken at the sound 
of that cool and unimpassioned voice, — "boys !" slowly 
said Ernley, deliberately scanning the heavens, — "we 
are going to have a storm. Look at that cloud!" — 
continued he, pointing over the water. " See how 
rapidly it swells and darkens, and how its advance- 
guard of vapor rolls and tosses!" 

"You are right," said Prince, "and we ought to be 
up and doing. We have no time to spare. It will 
take our best to prepare for its coming. And here, 
Ernley, is the first shot from that 'advanced guard' of 
yours, as a puff of wind, the first that had been felt 
during the afternoon, lifted his hat from his head, and 
whirled it away among the bushes. 

All went immediately to work — adjusting the can- 
vass, tightening the ropes, and driving more securely 
in the ground the pins of the tents ; packing away 

clothes, bedding, and other articles of domestic use ; 
10 



138 Day in Camp. 

closing up boxes ; and locking chests and trunks. 
While they were thus engaged, clouds had over-spread 
the sky, and were dashing against each other in fierce 
and angry confusion. The wind too had risen, and 
was blowing in heavy, fitful gusts, — swaying the pine- 
tops to and fro, and drawing from them their pecu- 
liarly mournful and dreary monotone. The party 
waited in breathless suspense for what was to follow, 
as the gale commenced to blow more steadily, and 
stronger and yet stronger, while the evening grew 
darker and yet darker. 

" What do you think of the prospect, Lankey ? " 
asked Ernley, as the negroes like a flock of sheep, 
came crowding up to the camp from the cooking 
ground. 

" It's bad, sar, mighty bad. Ev'ry one uv you, Mars. 
Ernley, ought to be a cryin' an' a wailin', an' a prayin'." 
And then giving expression to the ready belief of the 
negro in the immediate end of all things, when he is 
alarmed by unusual appearances in the heavens, he 
continued : " I believe the day uv judgment's come at 
las'. — We's a lost an' ruined people — that's what we 
is." 

"You don't know that we are not praying, Lankey," 
said Charley — "Crying and wailing can't help us." 

" Well, you 'pear to take it all monstrous easy any 
how. You don't seem to 'preciate de orful situation." 

" We are in rather an exposed ' situation ' to meet a 
storm, — we 'appreciate' that," observed Prince, while 
he and several others were clustered around the differ- 
ent tents in an effort to hold the fluttering structures to 
their positions. 

"That is so," replied Judge Crofton grasping the 



Day in Camp. 139 

pole of a tent, " but perhaps we are better off than we 
would be in a house." 

" Where is Haverwood ? " asked McTarney seizing 
another tent pole. 

" Here," was the reply from the outermost tent, — 
" here, trying, as you are doing, to keep a prancing 
habitation from running away. 

" And Briarsley ? " 

" Helping Haverwood." 

" Hold fast, boys ! " exclaimed Judge Crofton as a 
blast came madly tearing up the beach, and almost 
capsized the tents in its furious passage. 

"A blow just a little stronger than that," slowly 
drawled out old Maltman, "and away goes all our 
shelters." 

"These blows," said Ernley calmly, "are nothing 
compared with what is coming. You had just as well 
let the tents alone. They are bound to go ; and it will 
be a mercy if we don't go with them." 

The howling of the wind soon became fearful, — fol- 
lowed now and then by a sudden hush, which was more 
fearful still. Hitherto, however, it had blown straightly 
and directly from the southwest. But now quick undu- 
lations, sweeping gyrations, and abrupt choppings,in its 
frantic course, could be observed. Suddenly the whole 
face of the Gulf was lit up by a red electric glare, and 
a heavy rumbling noise, like that of an earthquake, 
was heard far over the waters. Looking in that direc- 
tion, the party in camp saw the waves furiously dashing 
and leaping before the fiery breath of the approaching 
tempest. 

"Down — down ! every one of you to a bush," shouted 
Haverwood. 



140 Day in Camp. 

"Yes," exclaimed Maltman, seizing a shrub, aud flat- 
tening himself upon the ground, "and with your heads 
to the wind." 

Closer and closer came the bounding and surging 
mass of lurid cloud imprisoned in the whirling wind, — 
closer and closer, it came, with all the appearance and 
spirit of a raging demon ! — redder and redder gleamed 
its monstrous front!— louder and louder sounded its 
mighty voice ! — and, with a power, that dashed every 
obstacle, as the merest chaff, from its pathway, and a 
roar that would have drowned the thunderous explo- 
sion of a hundred pieces of the heaviest artillery, it 
passed. Away — away ! — through the crackling forest, 
it sped, — its mighty tones growing fainter and fainter, 
as it receded upon its far-reaching mission of destruc- 
tion. The vapors of the firmament around were rolled 
together like a scroll, by the terrific force of its passage, 
and vanished leaving not a rack behind. In a few min- 
utes the air was as pure and bright, and the stars were 
looking as serenely down, from as peaceful a sky, as if 
there were no suiBfering or death in the world. 

The tents had disappeared ; such goods as had not 
been packed away in trunks or boxes, were scattered 
far and wide ; and the ground was covered with torn 
and broken branches of trees. But none of the party 
had been wrenched from their fastenings nor injured 
by the falling timber. Lankey and two of the other 
negroes soon approached with blazing torches. 

" We were only in the edge of the storm," said Ern- 
ley. " It Tpassed just north of us. Thank God for 
that:!" 

"Yes," said Haverwood looking upward, in which 
reverential action he was followed by all, " like the old 



Day in Camp. 141 

man of the mountain, whom Briarsley told us of the 
other night, we have cause to thank God from the bot- 
tom of our hearts." 

" Now," said Charley, after a long and impressive 
pause, and looking rather ruefully at the place where 
the tents had lately stood, " to come back to the present 
and future from the past, I must say it is a good thing 
for us, that the storm put off its disastrous visit, until 
the last day of our proposed stay here ; and it will be 
another good thing for us, if the storm missed the 
schooner." 

"Oh," replied Ernley confidently, "the schooner is 
all right. The storm came across the Gulf, and its 
pathway was evidently narrow. It never touched the 
Bay, nor, indeed, any part of the coast between here 
and Mobile. We'll have a resting-place before 12 o'clock. 
Gulpen will get here on time, without some accident 
happens to him that we know nothing about." 

As Ernley had said, the schooner did come in before 
midnight ; and in less than an hour after its arrival all 
their baggage, — the wreck of the tents, etc., Gulpen 
engaged to have gathered up, if to be found, early the 
next morning, — was stored aboard, and they, snugly 
tucked away in the cabin of the schooner, were fast 
asleep, and perchance dreaming of wives and sweet- 
hearts. 



PAKT VI.— THE RETUEN. 

SiSSALINE GlENTHORNE — ThE CONFEDERATE SoLDIER'S 

Farewell — Southern Cavaliers — Southern Men, 
Their Wives and Daughters — Bright Mobile. 

Love took the harp of Life, and smote on its chords with might, 
Smote the chord of Self, that trembling, passed in music out of 
sight. — Tennyson. 

Land of the South — imperial land! — Meek. 

The party, whom the reader accompanied to their 
couches on board the schooner, rested well. Their 
sleep, after the agitations of the previous evening, was 
so refreshingly deep that it could not be broken by 
even the songs and shouts of Lankey and the other 
negroes, as the little vessel, just at sunrise, started for 
Mobile. 

It was near mid-day before the last of them made 
their appearance on deck. The schooner then was 
about entering the mouth of the bay, and was gliding 
along smoothly and easily before a light breeze from 
the Gulf. The day, like that which had witnessed 
their departure from the city ten days before, was 
bright and pleasant — indeed, the air was unusually 
cool and bracing for the season, all of which was, no 
doubt, owing to the late storm. They amused them- 
selves in various ways as the vessel sped noiselessly 
on its course — some sauntering idly about the deck — 
others gathered in small groups, laughing and talking 
over the incidents of the excursion. 

It was not until late in the afernoon that the whole 



The Eeturn. • 143 

party became seated together around a table with wine 
and glasses, in the "forefront" of the vessel, to use one 
of Charley's words. They were at the time perhaps 
ten or twelve miles below Mobile. 

" You all saw Gulpen, when he first reached us last 
night, hand me a letter," said Judge Crofton. "Here 
it is ! " — holding up a paper — " I may, perhaps, read it 
after awhile. This letter has given me the conclusion 
of a romantic bit of history, which I propose to 
recount to you ; — it will serve to pass the time that 
just now can't be more profitably employed. A young 
man, the son of an old friend, figures in it as one of 
the chief actors. There is a pretty girl in it, too. — I 
shall call it, after her, 

"SISSALINE GLENTHORNE. 

"Most of you know Walter Cheverley, who was so 
frequently about Mobile a few years ago, — 'Pretty 
Cheverley,' as he was called by the girls of that city. 
Most of you know, also, that he was as generous, 
impulsive, volatile, and thoughtless, as he was hand- 
some. But none of you, perhaps, knew that, under all 
this lightness and frivolity, was a firm stratum of 
genuine manhood. When he was not in Mobile, some 
of you will recollect, that he was generally, Alfieri-like, 
flying about the country, in search of gayety, or what 
he]denominated 'life.' With a superfluity of money at 
his disposal, and a fund of animal spirits apparently 
inexhaustible, which, with his'flne person, kindly 
disposition, and pleasing manners, made him univers- 
ally popular with his youthful associates, it may be 
that this dashing and roving habit of Walter Cheverley 
did not strike any of you with astonishment ; but I, 



144 • The^Eeturn. 

who happened to know his family and ^situation well, 
— I, who knew that he was neglecting the most im- 
portant home duties, and was leaving the burden of 
managing the large and varied property left by his 
father, upon his mother — a pale, delicate and fragile 
woman, residing almost alone on the plantation just 
below Choctaw Bluff, on the Alabama River, — was 
both grieved and shocked at his course. A friend of 
the family of long standing, I often remonstrated with 
him about it. 

"Some of you have, no doubt, observed that Walter 
has seldom been to Mobile, during the last two years. 
Thereby hangs a tale. A change has come over the 
spirit of his dream, or, of his thoughts and feelings 
rather, as wonderful in its beginning as beneficial in 
its results. 1 was in the neighborhood of the Bluff, a 
few weeks ago, and learned from Walter Cheverley 
and others all the facts with regard to it. These, you 
will discover, from a plain and simple recital, have 
many of the elements of the wildest and moat romantic 
fiction. 

"It appears that, during one of Walter's brilliant 
and dashing forays into the fashionable follydom of 
divers cities. North and South, his mother sold a small 
place, about a mile below the home plantation, to a 
lady — the widow of a Confederate officer killed at the 
battle of Seven Pines. Mrs. Glenthorne, the purchaser 
referred to, was a magnificent specimen, I should say 
here, of able-bodied womanhood, — tall in stature, 
erect and graceful in bearing, and, although a little 
past middle age, and somewhat too masculine in 
appearance, was remarkably handsome. She was the 
mother ^of one son, a youth of about fifteen, and two 



The Keturn. 145 

daughters, — the eldest, scarcely twenty, was named 
Aline, but called by the family 'Sissaline.' The cot- 
tage on the place, at the time of the purchase old and 
delapidated, was repaired, and, under the deft and 
busy fingers of the women, soon became a gem of 
neatness and beauty set in a circlet of charming ever- 
greens and flowers. Not only about the house, but 
everything about the little farm, gave speedy evidence 
of thrift, taste, and good management. And yet all 
the work was done by the mother and the three 
children, assisted by a single horse. In cultivating 
the farm, the boy plowed, while the mother and her 
daughters followed with the hoes. The girls, w^hen in 
the field, — the mother was not so particular, — pre- 
served the purity of their complexions and the softness 
and shapeliness of their hands, by protecting the one 
with huge 'sunbonnets,' within which were fastened 
masks, and the other, with heavy gloves of woolen cloth, 
reaching to the elbows. Both of them, indeed, had 
hands and complexions worthy of such care, especially, 
I should say, Sissaline, as she is the only one with 
whom this history has anything to do. 

"I must pause here," continued Judge Crofton, 
"to say a few words about the appearance of this girl ; 
— I have her before me now, as she looked, when I first 
saw her surrounded by the other members of this in- 
teresting family. I, however, am not good at describing 
women, — so you must all be satisfied with a few gen- 
eral remarks now in that behalf. Indeed, no description 
that any one might give, could do her justice. I have 
already outlined the person of her mother. The 
daughter in this respect was very much like her though 
smaller. The resemblance between them could be 



146 The Eetubn. 

traced further. They had the same classically and 
clearly cut features ; the same fearless expression ; the 
same spirited bearing ; the same free and elastic step. 
About the latter, however, was all the freshness and 
softness and roundness of youthful bloom and beauty. 
In short, the one was magnificent, and the other 
perfect. 

Walter had not been at home long, when, in saun- 
tering idly through one of the green and shady lanes 
in the neighborhood, he chanced to meet Sissaline 
Glenthorne and her brother. She had been gathering 
wild flowers, a large bunch of which was in her right 
hand, while her left was gracefully swinging by its blue 
ribbons a wide-brimmed straw hat at her side. The 
color of her fair, proud face was heightened by exer- 
cise, and perhaps by the unexpectedness of her meet- 
ing with the young man, — to whom she appeared as 
glorious as a brilliant sun-burst through the clouds of 
an April sky. — He raised his hat. — With a little nod, 
and one flash of her dazzling eyes, she swept by him, 
with the grace of a bird, and the dignity of a queen, 
and was gone. He stood transfixed to the spot, va- 
cantly and stupidly staring at the bushes, through 
which she had disappeared. Ardent and impetuous, 
in an instant he felt that he had met his fate. He 
tumbled at once, as he forcibly expressed it himself, 
blindly and headlong into the deepest vortex of love. 
He hurried home, and seeking his mother, told her 
what he had seen. 

" 'I have no doubt the girl you met was Sissaline 
Glenthorne. There are two of the Glenthorne girls, 
but she is the elder and handsomer.' His mother spoke 



The Eeturn. 147 

in her usually soft and even tones, without raising her 
eyes from her needle-work. 

"'Have they ever been here?' asked Walter 
abruptly. — 'Have you been to see them and their 
mother?' 

" 'Of course I have called on them, you foolish boy. 
Do you suppose I would have allowed all these weeks 
and months to pass, without the performance of that 
neighborly courtesy and duty. And they have been 
here several times. While hard-working, they are very 
pleasant and refined people, and have, I dare say, 
known better days. I like them exceedingly.' 

"Walter, in the tumult of his spirits, could hardly 
understand how his mother could speak of them so 
calmly and prosaically. At any rate, he thought she 
ought to have gone into raptures over SissaliDe, if that 
girl was, in truth, the one whom he had encountered 
in the lane. He, however, said nothing more to her 
then on the subject, nor indeed for some time after- 
wards. In the meanwhile he daily haunted the lanes 
and by-paths in the vicinity of Mrs. Glenthorne's cot- 
tage, with the hope of again meeting the fair unknown, 
but without success. 

" 'Mother,' said he one Saturday afternoon, when he 
had returned from a profitless walk over the haunted 
ground, 'don't you think you ought to call again on 
Mrs. Glenthorne? You have not done so since I came 
home. What do you say to going over this afternoon, 
and taking me with you? They are near neighbors,' 
he continued with elaborate indifference, 'and I ought 
to know them.' 

" 'I will call if you wish,' answered she, looking at 



148 The Eeturn. 

him curiously, and with a faint smile. 'I shall be glad 
to have you go with me of course.' 

After that visit, and his pleasant introduction to the 
family, which included a long talk with Sissaline, who, 
he discovered, was indeed the beautiful flower-girl of 
the lane, Walter Cheverley could have been seen in 
Mrs. Glenthorne's small sitting-room almost every 
night. He was not allowed to call during the day, — 
the girls telling him frankly, yet laughingly, that they 
had work to do, and while so engaged they wanted 
none of his company. And so the days and months 
rolled on for Walter Cheverley, — he, in the meantime, 
being the self-satisfied inhabitant of an elysium of his 
own creation. Whether that elysium would last, or 
dissolve like the baseless fabric of a vision, depended, 
of course, upon Sissaline Glenthorne. Of making it 
permanent, by winning and wearing her, he, however, 
had but little doubt. Like most impulsive young men, 
he had plenty of hopefulness, and like them, when 
possessed of great worldly advantages, he had plenty 
of vanity. From these, joined with the thought of her 
being certainly anxious to escape from the drudgery of 
field-work, sprang his only assurances of success, — for 
Sissaline, while she did not shun, never showed any 
marked predilection for his societv. Indeed in her 
intercourse with him, she was generally cold and dis- 
tant, sometimes shy, and only at rare moments cor- 
dial — never confidential. 

'* One evening they were walking in the shadow of 
the great trees, which fringed the river not far from 
Mrs. Glenthorne's home. The sun was low, and its 
horizontal beams made their way under the heavy 
boughs, hanging wreaths of rosy light upon the moss- 



The Keturn. 149 

covered trunks, and scattering them on the grass, which 
here clothed the elevated bank. Walter, as they 
paused at the foot of a gigantic beech, placed himself 
in front of Sissaline, and all at once, rapidly and im- 
pulsively told her of his great love. Under the influ- 
ence of his feelings, he told the old, old tale, which is 
ever new, so forcibly and earnestly, that at times it was 
marked by a sort of unstudied and touching eloquence. 
He told her how he had loved her from the moment he 
had first seen her in the green lane gathering wild 
flowers, — how that love had increased, as he became 
acquainted with her many excellences of heart and 
mind, — and how, with his mother's approbation, who 
was anxious to call her daughter, he now made his feel- 
ings known to her, and besought her consent to become 
his wife. He concluded with the words, passionately 
uttered : — 'You have in your keeping my future upon 
earth. You can make it or mar it at will. Permit me 
to hope that you will deal with it gently — deal with it, 
as I wish and beg !' 

" She remained motionless, while he was speaking, 
with her head drooped, and her eyes fixed upon the 
green turf at her feet. She was very pale. When he 
had finished, she slowly raised her head, and looking 
him steadily in the face, replied in tones cold and dis- 
tinct, that his suit was hopeless. ' No,' continued she, 
I cannot accept your love — I can never marry you, 
Mr. Cheverley." 

"Walter was thunderstruck. At first the thought 
flashed through his mind — a thought which he quickly 
felt to be unmanly, almost blasphemous, and he deter- 
mined to punch his head, at the earliest convenient 
opportunity, for granting it admission — that she had 



150 The Eeturn. 

lost her senses ; as nothing short of mental obliquity, 
it for the moment seemed to him, could lead one situ- 
ated as she was to reject him — him ! Walter Chev- 
erley, Esquire. I say, his better nature rose in re- 
bellion at this idea, and crushed it out, as something 
little short of sacrilege — something at any rate dishon- 
oring both to her and to him. And besides, he readily 
saw there was no flightiness, but plenty of determina- 
tion in the steady light of the two eyes looking fixedly 
into his own. He turned suddenly, and strode rapidly 
and excitedly to the verge of the bank overhanging the 
waters of the Alabama, and then back to his former 
position in front of her. She had not moved. 

" ' Will you tell me,' asked he abruptly and in an 
agitated voice, 'Sissaline ? — ' 

" ' Miss Glenthorne if you please,' said she haught- 

iiy- 

" 'Will you tell me. Miss Glenthorne, why you have 
rejected me ?' 

" ' Because I do not love you," returned she in alow, 
but decided tone of voice. 

" 'Your ungracious tone and manner,' said he, after 
a pause, in which he had drawn up his fine person to 
its full height, and regarded her with some degree of 
composure, though the lower part of his handsome 
face was scill pale, and there were traces of an angry 
flush still upon his brow, — ' your ungracious tone and 
manner, as well as words, indicate that you are actu- 
ated in the rejection of my addresses by something 
more than a mere want of love. Will you kindl}^ in- 
form me, if I am right in my supposition ; and if so, 
what it is?' 

" 'While I do not acknowledge your right to ques- 



The Eetubn. 151 

tion me after what I have said, yet I will answer that 
your suspicions are correct, — there is the something 
to which you refer. And in order to end this distress- 
ing matter at once and forever, I will say further, that 
were I really in love with you — and such a thing is not 
possible — I would not marry you, Mr. Cheverley. In- 
deed, I could not marry a man who is a mere drone in 
the world — whose existence is purposeless — in a word, 
whose life is no gain to humanity, and whose death 
would be no loss.' Grandly beautiful she appeared to 
Walter Cheverley, while uttering these crushing words. 
" He made no reply. Indeed, nothing more was said. 
Slowly they walked towards her home . He bade her 
adieu at the gate. Sad and humiliated, he went imme- 
diately to his mother, and told her all. From her he 
obtained that which he sorely needed, — the warmest 
of sympathy and the best of counsel. The decided 
words of the girl, followed by the gentle, loving ones 
of the mother, opened Walter's eyes to his short- 
comings. He formed a great resolution that night, not 
for the purpose of winning Sissaliue Glenthorne, it 
should in justice to him be it said, for she had told 
him that she did not, and never could love him, but 
because her words, as before intimated, had pointed 
out to him the long neglected path of his duties, as it 
had never been done before. He entered upon the work 
the next morning. The management of the extensive 
property he took at once in his own hands. For nearly 
two years he never left home, except to call when 
necessary upon his merchants and bankers at Mobile. 
He attended strictly and closely to his business. Pro- 
jecting and superintending many great improvements 
upon the estate, he was ever ready to put his own 



152 The Ketukn. 

shoulder to the wheel, whenever the nature of the 
work, or the obstacles to be overcome, demanded it. 
The increased value of the property; the gratification 
of his mother ; the blessings of the tenantry, and the 
other laborers on the place ; and above all, the con- 
sciousness of duty well discharged, furnished ample 
compensation for all the vexation and weariness of his 
labors. 

"During this time, ho seldom saw Sissaline Glen- 
thorne. It was only by chance that he met her at all, 
as he called no more at her home ; and she, of course, 
never visited Mrs. Oheverley. At these accidental meet- 
ings, she seemed shyer and colder if possible, than 
before the memorable interview under the beech on 
the side of the river. He had every reason to believe 
therefore, that her unfavorable impressions with 
regard to himself had undergone no change, at least 
for the better, — nor, it may be added, did he seem to 
care. Even his mother, noting his freedom from 
despondency, and his devotion to business, supposed 
that he had entirely overcome the old love. 

"About a month ago," continued Judge Crofton, 
after a short pause, "Sissaline Glenthorne left her home 
to walk to tlie house of a neighbor. The distance was 
scarcely a mile ; and the road, with one exception, — 
where ifc crossed a small stream, — was open, — leading, 
as it did, between cultivated fields. The morning was 
bright and pleasant, and, as she moved rapidly along, 
with a firm aud active step, the birds were singing 
around her, to whose notes she responded in a ' voice- 
music,' equally as wild and sweet. She passed the 
bridge over the stream before mentioned, and started 
across the small piece of bottom-land beyond, 



The Ketuen. jg3 

shadowed by large trees, whose branches nearly met 
overhead. Between their trunks on either hand was a 
network of creepers and vines. 

"Her singing suddenly ceased, and the rose of 
health, which exercise had deepened upon her lovelv 
cheeks, instantly faded, when a powerful negro-man 
sprang from the bushes at the roadside, and confronted 
her. She knew him to be Black Jim.— He had been 
pointed out to her by a neighbor, on .some previous 
occasion, as a most desperate character, living upon a 
plantation several miles below on the river. And ther^ 
he stood before her, upon that lonely road !-in that 
secluded spot! As these facts darted through her 
mind and she detected an expression of exultation in 
his black and villainous countenance, she realized the 
full peril of her situation, and could scarcely keep from 
sinking to the ground. By a great eifort, she held her- 
self firmly erect, and fixed upon him her flashing 
eyes. Beast-like he was held by them spell-bound 
and motionless. Drawing from her pocket a small 
pistol, she leveled it at his breast ; and with an im- 
perious wave of the other hand, and a clear, rin^in.. 
voice, she bade him stand aside, and let her pass "as 
he shifted his glance from her face to the pistol, the 
spell was broken; and after the manner of an African 
when preparing for a desperate rush, he closed his' 
eyes, and dropped his head. In an instant he bounded 
torward, receiving apparently without injury the leaden 
contents of the little pistol, which he wrenched from 
the fingers of the heroic girl, with one hand, while 
with the other, he lifted her from the ground, and 
turning, dashed into the thicket of undergrowth, from 
which he had just emerged. The whole was the work 



154 The Eeturn. 

of but a few moments. She bad only time to utter one 
shriek, shrill and agonizing, when the negro grasped 
her tightly by the throat. 

"But help was near. Walter Cheverley, from a by- 
path had seen Sissaline pass, and, turning into the 
same road, had followed her. He was on the bridge, 
but not in sight of her, when the report of the pistol 
reached him, succeeded by the scream. Desperate 
fear on her account gave wings to his feet. He was 
almost at the spot, before Black Jim had disappeared 
in the bushes. In a moment more he was upon him. 
So furious was his onset, under the influence of excite- 
ment and passion, that the gigantic negro had to 
release the girl, and catch by a tree to save himself 
from being borne to the ground. Then he turned, and 
grappled with his assailant. Walter was unarmed; 
and the odds were against him, as Black Jim was a 
man of tremendous power. The struggle for a time 
was desperate. Finally the negro got his iron grasp 
upon Walter's throat, and by his great size and strength, 
crushed him down. Planting his knee upon the breast, 
and savagely tightening his grasp upon the throat 
of the young man, he would speedily have ended the 
struggle in the death of the latter, had it not been for 
Sissaline. When she was caught up by the negro, she 
did not faint, nor, for a moment during the horrors 
that followed, did she lose her presence of mind. As 
Black Jim stooped over his intended victim, she seized 
a large stone lying by, which, under ordinary circum- 
stances, she could scarcely have lifted, and holding it 
poised above her with both hands, she discharged it 
with no little force upon the back of his head. The 
stroke was quickly repeated, for she held on to the 



The Ketubn. X55 

stone; and the negro releasirg Lis LoJd upon Walter 
staggered to his feet. Dazed and reeling, he struck 
out blindly with his immense arms. Before, however 
he had recovered from the stunning effects of the 
blows, Sissaline heard the ring of horses' feet upon the 
bridge, and in a few moments the sound of voices In 
answer to her call for help, two sturdy young farmers 
of the neighborhood, forced their horses through the 
undergrowth to the spot, where she stood confronting- 
the desperate negro. Taking in the situation at a 
glance, they sprang from their horses; and before 
Black Jim could well open his heavy eyes, they had 
his arms securely pinioned behind his back with a 
bridle-rein. It was not until then that the spirited 
and beautiful girl lost control of herself.— Walter had 
partially recovered.-He was sitting up, but had not 
yet spoken.— Looking with intense pain upon his still 
hvid face, and throwing her hand with a quick nervous 
motion to her own throat, which bore the marks made 
by the negro's brutal hand, when he was bearing her 
from the road, she exclaimed,-at the same time stamp- 
ing her small foot violently upon the ground, to give 
emphasis to the words so expressive of outraged feel- 
ing : 'Away with him— away with him ! Put him to 
death-put him to death! Do not suffer such a 
monster to cumber the earth for another hour.' Plac- 
ing her hands before her face, she burst into such a 
storm of tears, that they streamed between her deli- 
cate fingers, and dropped upon her bosom. The par- 
oxysm was as short as it was violent. When Walter 
was able to walk, she offered him the support of her 
arm; and the party having regained the highway, sep- 
arated. Walter and Sissaline walked back towards 



156 The Eetukn. 

her Lome. The two yonng men with the negro went 
in the opposite direction. Black Jim was never seen 
after that day. The young men said, that they lost 
him in the woods. 

"My story is about ended." — Judge Crofton here 
took out his watch and laid it on the table before 
him, — he also opened the letter previously referred to. 
" My story," he repeated " is about ended. This letter 
is from Walter Cheverley. It was written to inform 
me that at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the 10th day 
of this month, in time to take the steamer of that even- 
ing for Mobile, he would marry the girl whom he had 
so long loved, and who had first made his life useful, 
and then preserved it. To-day is the 10th." — Taking 
up his watch, he added: " It is now 4 o'clock. Walter 
Cheverley and Sissaline Glenthorne have no doubt 
been husband and wife for one hour. Let us drink, 
boys, to the health and happiness of This girl of the 
South !" 

"Now, Judge," said Charley, "I shall ask one more 
favor of you ; and that is, for you to recite to us your 
last poem. I am free to say, I have never seen it ; — 
Crumlyn and Briarsley have repeated parts of it to me, 
and these parts recalled so many old and familiar scenes, 
that I want to hear it all, and hear it from your lips." 

Judge Crofton interposed an objection to Charley's 
proposition. He said he was tired, and that some one 
else must do the entertaining. Charley, however, per- 
sisting, and being joined by all the others in the 
request, Judge Crofton, who never refused to comply 



The Ketuen. ' 157 

with any reasonable demand on the part of his friends, 
after a pause, recited 

*' The Confederate Soldier's Farewell. 



" We are going, mothers, going— 
We are going, sisters, wives ! 

We are giving up the brightness, 
And the sweetness of our lives ; 

But our hearts are stout and faithful, 
For the war to which w^e move, 

Is a war for Southern freedom- 
Is a war for all we love. 

Not a tear must fall at parting ; 
Smiles alone be sought and won ; 

Let us only think of meeting, 
When the war's sad work is done,— 

When with honors thick and shining, 
We return to love and you ; 

We are going— we are going- 
Home and friends awhile adieu ! 



" We are marching— we are marching- 
Prompt to meet the coming foe ; 

With a tramp like muffled drum beats, 
'Neath the changing skies we go. 

Came the order, short and sudden,— 
* Forward,' was the stern command ; 

And we filed from peaceful bivouac, 
In a strong and length'ning band,— 

Through the shadows of the woodland, 
Over splintered mountains steep ; 

Through the croaking marsh and thicket, 
Over rivers broad and deep ; 

Now we join the army's vanguard,— 
And our thoughts are still of you ; 

We are marching,— we are marching,— 
Home and friends awhile adieu ! 



158 The Betukn. 

3. 

" We are fighting, — we are fighting, — 

Onward, to the cannons' roar; 
Taking part in deeds of prowess, 

That shall live forever more. 
Oh, the bullets shrilly whisper! 

Oh, the screaming shot and shell ! 
Speaking less of death than honor, 

Make the soul with daring swell. 
* Steady !' — still the cry is * steady !' 

And along a bloody track, 
At the sword-point, sharp and dripping. 

Lines are swaying forth and back ; 
Yet amid the storm of battle. 

We can think of love and you ; 
We are fighting,— we are fighting,— 

Home and friends awhile adieu ! 

4. 

" We are charging, — we are charging, — 

In the thickest of the fray ; 
'Mid a tumult, ceaseless, awful, 

Making hideous night and day ; 
'Mid the sabres brightly flashing, 

Crossing sabres in the air ; 
'Mid the muskets' steely rattle 

And the trumpets' brazen blare ; 
'Mid a hell of shrieks and shoutings, 

O'er a ghastly field, and red, 
'Mid explosions, — shocks incessant, — 

O'er the dying, and the dead ; 
But our souls are true and steadfast. 

Press we on, and think of you ; 
We are charging, — we are charging, — 

Home and friends awhile adieu ! 

5. 

" We are going, mothers, going,— 

We are going, sisters, wives ! 
Ah, to love, and faith, and duty, 



The Eetubn. 159 

We have offered up our lives. 
Flowing swiftly is our hearts' blood, 

Out of gaping wounds, and large ; 
We have fought our final battle, 

We have made our final charge. 
Now our eyes are drooping — failing— 

Now our strength is ebbing fast ; 
But our earthly warfare over, 

We have heavenly peace at last ; 
And the prayer we breathe in dying, 

Is a parting prayer for you ; 
We are going, — we are going, — 

Home and friends a last adieu !" 

"As Judge Crofton" said Briarslej, " lias told us of 
the Confederate heroes, who never got back to their 
homes, Crumljn must sing to us of those who did. He 
has plenty of time to give us that song, as well as the 
other he especially promised for this occasion. Get 
yourself ready, old fellow, — get yourself ready ! " 

Crumlyn took the guitar from Lankey, who had gone 
for it while Briarsley was speaking, and after a little 
instrumental prelude, with much taste and spirit, 
sang : 

" The Southern Cavaliers. 

" The sons of princely sires were they. 

Of acres broad, the lords,— 
Of halls that witnessed kindly acts, 

And echoed kindly words, — 
Oi halls and hearts that opened wide. 

To Want's appealing tears ; 
* Rich, gen'rous do-naughts', they were called,— 

These Southern cavaliers. 

" And yet amid the rush of war, 

They met the shock unmoved. 
And when they struck, a blow was giv'n, * 

That Bravery's self approved ; 



160 The Eetubn. 

The Normans in the olden time, 
Through ranks of thick'ning spears, 

Ne'er fought with greater gallantry, 
Than Southern cavaliers. 

*' And when the storm of war was o'er, 

Their country wrecked was left, 
As country scarce was wrecked before, — 

Of every joy bereft ; 
Then rose the clarion cry of work, — 

'Twas borne to heeding ears ; 
And men ne'er labored for their homes, 

Like Southern cavaliers. 

" They faltered not, — they waxed not faint, — 

They made the desert bloom, — 
Evoked a glorious empire from 

The ashes of the tomb ; 
Those hearts and minds and hands will strive. 

Through all the coming years. 
For firmness linked with dash and pluck, 

Have Southern cavaliers." 



"I don't altogether fancy that name — ^Southern 
cavaliers,' — I prefer simply 'Southern gentlemen,' 
said Ernley, assuming his usual position, when bent 
on making a speech. "But no matter what you may 
call them, they were in the broadest sense of the 
phrase ' manly men.' Permit me to elaborate some- 
what the main thought suggested by Crumlyn's lines, — 
let me tell you what I think of 

" SOUTHERN MEN, THEIR WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. 

"There are no men and women less understood by 
the world, than the representative men and women of 
what may be termed for perspicuity, the former, and 



The Keturn. . 161 

the latter South. With regard to the first class, no 
true Southern man of to-day can speak, without being 
animated by a sympathy which may perhaps lead him 
into saying too much. They are almost all gone ! — and 
their shadowy forms appear through the soft light of 
affectionate remembrance so beautiful, and yet so 
sorrowful ! Of them, indeed, it may be truly said, 

* The light that led astray, 
Was light from Heaven ! ' 

The love of honor made them proud and sensitive ; the 
love of family made them over-indulgent ; the love of 
neighbor made them indiscriminately liberal and con- 
fiding; and it was all these combined, that made them 
wasteful and extravagant. But along with this love 
was something nearly related to it, — a princely self- 
respect, — which kept any one of these faults from ever 
degenerating into a baseness, and enabled them to bear 
all their misfortunes with an uncomplaining fortitude, 
that was truly sublime. 

" With regard to the second class, — the representa- 
tive men and women of the latter South, — a single 
statement will show that they were true descendants 
of worthy parents. Although they, with their fathers 
and mothers, struggled during the war, in their respec- 
tive spheres, as long as there was military organiza- 
tion among them, — until in fact, they had been beaten 
down by the weight of exhaustless numbers, animated 
by a kindred gallantry ; —yet, when all was over, the 
whispered word went out, that their ruin was hopeless 
and irretrievable. 'The great war,' it said, * was then 
upon them, for which they were by nature and educa- 
tion, wholly unfitted, and that too when all life and 



162 The Keturn. 

confidence had been crushed out of them by the other. 
'What can they,' — so the ominous whisper ran, — 'reared 
as they have been reared, — who heretofore cared to 
make no effort in this sort of warfare when success 
was comparatively easy, — persons alike destitute of 
energy and enterprise, — what can they accomplish 
under circumstances that might well appall the 
stoutest and best trained hearts and minds ? — what, in 
short, can they do towards rebuilding a country so 
completely and so terribly wrecked ? ' And what did 
they do? Look ! — and you will see that, in a few years, 
they brought order out of chaoi^, substituted happi- 
ness for misery, and evoked a prosperity, fair, health- 
ful and vigorous from the very ashes of death and des- 
olation. In this great work, — done through the 
offices of the government, and the learned professions ; 
in the counting-house, the shop and the field ; by the 
needle, on the cook-stove, and at the loom, — a deter- 
mined persistency, little expected by the outside world, 
w^as displayed in cooj auction with the dash and pluck, 
which no one denied to these sons and daughters of 
the South." 



"Ernley," exclaimed Charley, "you are — aluminous 
fraud. You would have us to believe that what you 
have just so truthfully said, was unpremeditated. It 
was a good speech, for I can call it nothing else, — one 
of the best speeches I ever heard you make, — too good, 
in fact, not to have been prepared beforehand. I am 
sure it was part of the discourse on ' Southern Man- 
hood,' with which you regaled us the other evening, 
and was accidentally omitted on that occasion. — But," 
continued he, turning to the party, "here we are close 



The Eeturn. 163 

to Mobile, and ready for that long promised song in its 
praise. Crumlyn says, we must all join in the chorus." 
With hearts full of love for the old city which was 
spread out before them — its white houses and grace- 
ful tbwers and spires 'bosomed high 'mid tufted 
trees', — they listened, not forgetting to join as re- 
quested, lustily in the refrain, to Crumlyn's song of 

" Bright Mobile--Dear Mobile. 

*' Her homes in beauty lining 

Her level thoroughfares, 
In seas of verdure shining, 

Serenely as the stars ; 
'Neath clouds whose pearly driftings 

Before the passing bret^ze, 
Are matched by golden siftings 

Of sunshine through the trees. 
Bright Mobile— bright Mobile 

Hath of loveliness the seal ; 
Oh, the gem of the South, 

Is the city of Mobile ! 

*' Her daughters are the fairest, 

E'er throned in minstrel rhyme, 
The gentlest and the dearest 

Of any favored clime ; 
Their souls have all the whiteness, 

The richness of perfume, 
The purity and brightness, 

Of the magnolia's bloom. 
Dear Mobile— dear Mobile 

Holds a sweetness that we feel ; 
Oh, the flow'r of the South 

Is the city of Mobile ! 

" Her sons are brave and honest, 

As any in the land ; 
Her sons are true and earnest, — 

An active, working band; 



164 The Keturn. 

Their hearts with vigor teeming, 

With wills to do and dare, 
Have giv'n her marts the seeming 

Of an unending fair. 
Bright Mobile— dear Mobile 

Doth a royalty reveal ; 
Oh. the queen cf the Soath 

Is the city of Mobile." 



THE Ex\D. 



-^ 



